Ethiopia Honors Books for Africa Enterprise

By Tsehaye Debalkew
June 17, 2012

Ethiopia Honors Books for Africa Enterprise

Ethiopia has issued Certificates of Recognition to the colossal and timely humanitarian task of donating critically needed books to the African continent by the Books for Africa /BFA/ Initiative, which is the global leader engaged in the provision of books to Africa since 1988 where Ethiopia stands tall as the second recipient of books in the continent trailing Ghana.

In an evening reception event hosted last Friday featuring The Books for Africa Summit Society, at the Chancery of the Ethiopian Embassy, the vote of thanks and due recognition was extended to Mr. Patrick Polanski, the Executive Director of BFA, Mr. Norm Linnel, Board President of BFA and also to Mr.Tom Warth, the Founder of BFA by the Special Envoy and Ambassador Extra-ordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia to the US, Ambassador Girma Birru.

During his key note address to the gathering, the Ethiopian Special Envoy, who is also BFA's honorary chairman for 2012 said "It is indeed a privilege for our Embassy and for me personally to be associated with this noble Endeavour which strives to assist the children of Africa in improving the quality of their education through the provision of books."

Denoting to the donation made by BFA to Ethiopia, the Ambassador spoke to the crowd of BFA supporters who were the guests of honor about the importance of getting even more books into the hands of Ethiopian students of all ages.  He outlined the educational goals Ethiopia has set for the next few years, giving primacy to ensuring primary education for all students—boys and girls.

By alluding to the fast track of the expansion of education currently observed in Ethiopia he revealed that Ethiopia's higher learning institutions use academic books as one of the critical input in their relentless effort to improve the quality of education.

"As you may be aware the number of government Universities excluding private, public and faith based institutions of higher learning, in Ethiopia has expanded from just two twenty one years ago to thirty two today. This surely underlines the need for continuous partnership between Ethiopia and Books for Africa", he stressed.

Under the Books for Africa/BFA/ Initiative it is estimated that over 26, million text and library books have been shipped  to 46 African countries since 1988.

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