The Volunteer of the Month is Sean Daglous Namenda who is the son of Elliot Ngosa, Lubuto’s Program Manager. Sean has helped us so much. Working with Nzala, he entered data for our Templeton program evaluating the impact of traditional storytelling on improving sexual and reproductive health outcomes. He has a keen interest in information technology and computer science—and is preparing to go to the University of Lusaka to study IT. Sean says his experience with Lubuto has been tremendously enriching and he hopes to come back and volunteer more. We are so grateful for all his efforts and can’t wait to welcome him back to the Lubuto team!

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The Volunteer of the Month is Veronica Mwansa Nkamba. Mwansa learned about Lubuto through a colleague who volunteered at the Fountain of Hope Centre. She says her experience with Lubuto was exciting because she learned new things including cataloging and shelving—and she was amazed by the quality and selection of books in Lubuto library collections. Mwansa’s children loved the books she shared with them from the collection. She is eager to start volunteering for Lubuto again in the near future, and we will be thrilled to have her back on the team again!

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Our Volunteer of the Month is the enthusiastic and talented Ashley Lanfer—Lubuto’s newest volunteer in Zambia, whose husband is teaching communications at the University of Zambia as a Fulbright Scholar, and whose three children love libraries as much as she does. So, they found Lubuto, and are happy for the opportunities our libraries offer for them all to engage directly with Zambian youth. To keep up with Zambian youth and their needs, we have been laying out plans at Lubuto libraries for new programs in information and digital literacy and caring for the environment. Ashley and her family have interests in both of these initiatives—and we hope we will have exciting news to share about these programs soon.

Ashley is a Partner at Wellspring Consulting and is an expert in strategic planning, impact assessment, communications and systems thinking. She is currently on sabbatical while in Zambia. Ashley holds an MESc from Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a BA in English and Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College.

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One way Lubuto's staff continues to serve children and their families during COVID is by typing out stories as text messages and sending them to caregivers to read to their children. Anastasia, an avid library user who is currently in the Lubuto Scholarship Program, has been instrumental in expanding the reach of these stories. She seeks out caregivers in the community to tell about this service and adds them to the list of recipients, and she uses this as an opportunity to introduce Lubuto libraries to them as well. She has now become the point person in the community to learn more about these stories, and she hopes for the libraries to open soon so that everyone she has reached out to, along with herself and her seven-year-old daughter, can enjoy the stories and books in the libraries in person.

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Adam is a relatively new friend of Lubuto that took us by storm with both a desire to contribute to Lubuto and great energy and competence that became an instant and enormous help as we struggled to master so many new things in having our first-ever virtual fundraising event. Looking back on it, we're not quite sure what we would have done without him! So when someone comes along who not only makes an essential contribution but also so quickly understands our work and how and why it is so important, we wanted to make sure we kept him in the fold. Adam went from discovering us as an organization he wanted to volunteer with to being a member of our Board of Directors in a little over a month - seemingly showing up everywhere he could be helpful in the process. No question that Adam Hostetter is our Volunteer of the Month - congratulations, Adam!

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Though our long-time supporter Pamela Tripp Melby is the newest member of our Board of Directors she hit the ground running to spearhead fundraising and an event to celebrate Lubuto's 15th anniversary along with director Sally Sinn. The original plan was, of course, to have an in-person event in Washington, DC, but the novel coronavirus changed all that, and necessitated an immediate pivot to virtual event planning. Whether that was outside of the comfort zone of the former head of the National Library of Education and Chief of the IMF's Information Services Division we don't know, as she joined Sally in pushing onward with dedication and great enthusiasm for Lubuto's work and mission - but maybe her Peace Corps volunteer background set her in this direction. The event is still ahead of us (on September 19, 2020) but right now we want to step back and recognize Pamela as Lubuto's Volunteer of the Month.

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Isaac joined the Lubuto Model Library in April 2020 as a part-time volunteer and works hand-in-hand with Besa to interpret deaf storytimes in Zambian Sign Language. He enjoys volunteering in this way so that deaf children can be included in library activities. He also helps deaf people in his community by building their self-confidence and being a friend to them. Isaac says he is affected when he sees people in the deaf community being underrated, so he tries to empower them with self-confidence talks. Thanks for all you do, Isaac!

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This month we are celebrating Dr. Akakandelwa Akakandelwa from the UNZA Library and Information Science department as our Volunteer of the Month. Several years ago, Dr. Aka identified and defined Lubuto's major domains of impact on the children and youth of Zambia. Now a founding member of our Zambia Board, he is working with our public library colleagues in Zambia to support our work in bringing impactful public library services to Zambia's children. Most recently, Dr. Aka was a member of Lubuto's Templeton World Charity Foundation workshop team assisting with our Global Innovations for Character Development proposal. Thank you, Dr. Aka, for all of your important contributions!

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Our volunteer of the month is Ambassador Barbara Chilangwa. We are so honored that, after several years of serving on our Advisory Board, she took on the leadership and establishment of our new Zambian Board as Chairman. As a long-serving Permanent Secretary in Zambia’s education ministry and an executive leader of CAMFED Zambia, Lubuto could have no better guide. We were so grateful for her new year’s message: “Lubuto is an extraordinary organization and it’s a pleasure and an honor to serve on the local board. We are committed to supporting your staff here as they continue with their noble cause of working with children and communities.”

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Our October volunteer of the month is Betty Banda, a recent graduate of the University of Zambia who has been helping with data entry in the office from August 2019 to the present. Betty is a highly committed volunteer who joins us three days a week, and says that she loves the fact that people in Lubuto’s main office are “friendly and easy to get to know.” Betty studied sociology and education, as well as holding a certificate in ICT, and she is happy to have the opportunity to gain work experience with Lubuto while she decides what kind of a career she wants to pursue. We are so grateful for Betty’s hard work and friendly presence!

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Our volunteer of the month for September is Sylvia Mwale! Sylvia is an Administrator and Sales/Marketing Executive at Start Tech Communication Limited, and she holds a diploma in Business Management. She joined the Lubuto Model Library in 2018 in May as a part-time volunteer, where she works hand-in-hand with Steve and Enesto. Sylvia joined Lubuto because she wanted to be part of the change she sees in the community through programs that the library provides. It also gives her a chance to give something back to the community, helps her build her self-esteem, and allows her to develop professional skills and experience.

Sylvia enjoys leading LubutoStorytime sessions and also assists with data collection, shelving and other duties. She loves working with children and has become friends with many library attendees. Her plan is to volunteer at the Model Library as long as she can. She appreciates Lubuto’s work and is grateful for the opportunities she has had. We are so grateful for all of her dedicated hard work and are glad to have such an amazing volunteer!

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Lubuto was excited to host MLIS student intern Samantha Hyde in July for a three-week internship focused on music, movement, and scientific inquiry in early childhood programming. Previously the Director of Education at the Colorado Ballet, Samantha is currently enrolled at Indiana University – Bloomington working towards a dual Master's degree in Library Science and African Studies while serving as the Company Manager for IU’s African American Dance Company of the African American Arts Institute. We are delighted to name Samantha Hyde our Volunteer of the Month!

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Our Volunteer of the Month is Zhaneta Angelovska. Born in Macedonia and living in Italy, Zhaneta is currently in Lusaka doing her “civil service,” a one-year volunteer period, with the Mthunzi Centre. Volunteering at the Mthunzi library, she supports the staff in their everyday activities and duties. “I love to see the curiosity of the children when they go through the pages of a book and discover new things or see things they have studied at school,” Zhaneta said. “Reading stories with the smallest children is another thing I enjoy doing; they just stay there and listen with a sacred silence and I can see all the beauty of innocence in their eyes.”

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Our April Volunteer of the Month is Miyoba Nzala from Musokotwane Compassion Mission Zambia in Choma, Zambia. Miyoba is a volunteer twice over: she has been volunteering full-time at MCMZ since September 2018, and joined us as a volunteer for the coding camp at the Mumuni Library in April with a delegation of 9 girls from their Choma-based residential center. But Miyoba’s involvement went far beyond that of a typical chaperone--she enthusiastically participated in the camp activities alongside the girls and spontaneously facilitated many life skills-focused mentoring sessions during the non-tech sessions. Three cheers, and many thanks, for Miyoba!

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This month we recognize and thank the great AmeriCorps team who “found” us and were the backbone of our Choma Library collection pack-up: Lauren Davidson, Randy Al-Ghawi, Annie Stein, Isaac Stopeck, Aaron Quarles, Kloie Hart, James Burton, Alyssa Monterusso, Jessica Robitaille. The 9-member team is part of AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), which is a full-time, 10-month, residential, national service program in which 2,100 young adults – 18 to 24 years old – serve nationwide each year. Our pack-up team, which was in DC from mid-February until mid-April, was from the Southern Region campus in Vicksburg, Mississippi, one of four regional campuses.

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This month we thank the dedicated and joyous support for Lubuto's work by the eight members of the women's chorus, Infamous. For the past five years, these musical ladies have showcased Lubuto's work and gathered community together for an annual evening of Carols for Lubuto, hosted at the home of Board member and Infamous member Elena Michaels. On December 15, 2018, many friends of Lubuto gathered for a festive evening of Christmas music (with audience participation!) and holiday treats. Every year the audience just gets bigger, and thanks to streamlining on Facebook Live, the Infamous ladies are taking their support for Lubuto around the world to friends and family.

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The November Volunteer of the Month is Dylan Knaggs, whose volunteer work for Lubuto in Zambia and now back in the U.S. has expanded and improved our data collection systems. Dylan developed from scratch a new Salesforce database for our library use and program data. He also supported the development of our data collection systems for DREAMS as well as the M&E hiring and training process—and supported the M&E sections for recent grant proposals. Dylan has a background in statistics and now works as a Data Analyst at Socrata in Washington DC.

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Moses is deaf and communicates primarily through sign language, although he can speak some. He is the co-founder of the Zambia Deaf Society, the interim Secretary General of the Deaf Leader Coalition, and a member of the Zambia National Association of the Deaf (ZNAD) and the National AIDS Council. For the past year, he has also been a faithful volunteer at the Lubuto Model Library.

Already passionate about deaf education and teaching Zambian Sign Language, Moses found out about Lubuto from a friend at church who works in the Model Library and soon joined our volunteer team, filling a huge need in reaching out to deaf children and youth. Since then, he comes to the library three times every week to run a deaf storytime in Zambian Sign Language, holds information sessions on HIV/AIDS for deaf adults and teaches sign language to both the deaf and the hearing.

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Chansa is a psychosocial counselor by profession with a certificate in counseling and HIV testing from the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA), and she was first introduced to Lubuto by her sister who helped train young mothers in basic ICT skills during a trip to the American Corner. She says she’s always had a passion for kids, and she enjoys interacting with them as they venture through life and learn new things. She has come to love volunteering with us because of the humble, loving, and welcoming people she’s found at Lubuto, making it easy to fit in and participate in Lubuto’s great work with the children and youth.

Chansa assists the library staff with the facilitation of all ICT programs, LubutoStorytime sessions, data collection, shelving and reading. She’s always the first one to arrive at the library—sometimes before the staff—and she loves to answer children’s questions. She appreciates Lubuto's work and is grateful for this opportunity to be part of such an amazing organization, and we appreciate her work and are grateful for such an amazing volunteer!

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The August 2018 Volunteer of the Month is Julie Lessin! In 2009, Jane spoke at Julie’s middle school, Sidwell Friends, and Julie never forgot her description of the street children that Lubuto Libraries were helping. Now in college, she has decided that she wants to become a science librarian and wrote in January to say that it would be an honor to be involved in Lubuto’s work. An excellent and faithful volunteer ever since, she has helped us catalog our collections throughout this year. We have very much enjoyed getting to know Julie and have realized that the honor is all ours!

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