The Discovery Store team is currently supporting a charity founded and organised by a fellow Scarborian, aged 23. The charity’s aim is simple: to provide books for those who don’t have books in and around the city, Chitungwiza in Zimbabwe. The logistics, however, are less so!
During the years of Zimbabwean recession, the health and education services in Zimbabwe virtually collapsed. Zimbabwe's power-sharing government between Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe has promised to revive the economy and restore such basic services; however, these services continue to suffer and lack much-needed resources. Very little has been invested in the Zimbabwean education system in recent years. Books of any kind are in short supply in Zimbabwe and therefore they're hard to find and very expensive. In high-density areas and villages particularly, school children have very few learning resources. Many children can not afford to go to school and therefore have no access to education whatsoever.
The project, Books for Zimbabwe, aims to provide books in the space of a ready-made library made out of the shipping container! This will provide a long-term educational resource to be used by individuals and schools alike. The Discovery Store is the main sponsor of Books for Zimbabwe, helping the project to cover the extortionate costs of shipping and buying the container which will then need to be shelved. Furthermore, The Discovery Store is helping the project to collect books (textbooks, educational books, novels, children’s books and more) by placing “Book Bins” in each store around the country as book collection points.
If you’d like to know more about Books for Zimbabwe or you’d like to get involved, please contact Lauren at rickettslauren@hotmail.com
08/10/2009