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Editor's Notes

• #3: Map of all countries where ALP has worked. Lesotho is down on lower right-hand side, completely encircled within South Africa.
• #4: Lesotho is a kingdom the size of Maryland. The population is 2 million, 75% of which is rural. Lesotho is extremely poor with 40% of the people living below the international poverty level of $1.25/day. 23% of the population is infected with HIV or AIDs, one of the highest rates of infection in the world, although infection rates are dropping. It became a separate country in the early 1800’s when a tribal chief, who later became the first King, created a refuge for people escaping the terror of Shaka Zulu in South Africa. It was a British protectorate until 1966, when it gained independence.
• #6: The Lesotho economy is based mostly on subsistence farming, livestock and mining. People still live in the traditional rondoval huts. Herd boys are in the fields, and not in school, watching over the family wealth, a small herd of cows or goats. Blankets are the national dress, and the herd boys wear them in the fields even in the hot sunshine. There are a few new textile factories in Maseru – run by Wal Mart, Foot Locker, Gap, Gloria Vanderbilt, JC Penny, Levi Strauss, Saks, Sears and Timberland. Water is their most important export, and they provide much of the water for their neighbor South Africa.
• #8: These are some of the Peace Corps volunteers who were our first partners in Lesotho. They worked with the people in their villages to understand what a library is, and were extremely helpful in training the early teacher-librarians. We still have a strong relationship with the Peace Corps.
• #9: Our current partner is the Lesotho Ministry of Education and Training, where we work with Vincent and Jobo.
• #11: We have started 363 libraries in Lesotho, which cover about one-third of the schools in the country.
• #12: School is free at the primary level. Students must pass a test given in English to proceed to the secondary level, where a fee is required. Lesotho has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa: 85% of those older than 14 who can read. ALP sends HIV/AIDS readers written especially for African children to include in all the libraries.
• #13: Some schools have almost impossible obstacles.
• #14: We have started lots of different kinds of libraries. Classroom libraries are an ALP innovation that began in Lesotho. A school takes our regular library books and divides them among all of the classrooms, so that each classroom gets a couple shelves of books. This began when a PCV asked if they would be able to try it at a school that had no space for a library. The 4/5th grades were already meeting in a chicken coop. Their experiment produced a 100% pass rate among the students after one year and the idea has spread like wildfire. It solves so many problems. The classroom teacher is responsible for the books. They don’t really need to be classified because there are few enough that you can just look through them. Notice each of them have a simple system that tracks the books. When the classroom door is locked, so are the books. Teachers feel they now have many helpers to share their teaching responsibility with – the books. Best of all, the students get instant access to the books. When they have finished copying the lesson on the board, they are encouraged to get a book!
• #17: ALP is recruiting book drive organizers to collect 1000 books and about $500 to start a library in Lesotho. www.africanlibraryproject.org