Library For All breaks down barriers to knowledge in developing world

Katherine Stephans is partnerships and communications manager forLibrary For All, a winner of the 2015 Knight News Challenge on Libraries.

AUG

062015

Two hundred fifty million children in developing countries are not learning to read and write, despite being enrolled in school. At Library For All, we envision a world where everyone has equal access to knowledge. There is a critical need for relevant, language-appropriate educational materials in developing countries, but the cost of building physical libraries is extraordinarily high.

In March 2012, our co-founders Rebecca McDonald and Tanyella Evans builtLibrary For All, a cloud-based, digital library platform as a solution to the knowledge gap. Our “library” is curated to offer quality ebooks in local languages for our program countries. The platform operates on devices that already exist in the developing world, such as low-cost mobile phones, tablets and computers. Recognizing that mobile phone networks are widespread but still growing, the platform is designed for low-bandwidth environments and can even be used offline.

Today, we have readers in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. We work with international and local publishers to build our country-specific libraries, and we liaise with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments to drive adoption in communities and schools. In these countries, local device manufacturers offer low-cost options for our readers to access our library platform. Though we do not provide devices to our program countries, we work with national telecommunications companies in each country to ensure that our users incur zero data charges while reading on our platform.

Our initial pilot program took place in Haiti, where we now offer more than 1,200 books, which are available in Haitian Creole, French, Spanish and English. Each book is reviewed by our Haitian Advisory Board, which is comprised of local educators and leaders in Haiti who ensure that our content is relevant to our readers and tagged to the local curriculum. The success of our library in Haiti has allowed for our expansion into both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. This spring, we introduced our Haiti model in the Democratic Republic of Congo through a partnership with local NGO En Classe. As a result, En Classe implemented our library at three schools in Kinshasa, the nation’s capital. In June, we launched alongside Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Imbuto Foundation in Rwanda. Our library collection in the Democratic Republic of Congo offers content in English and Lingala, while our Rwandan library offers content in English and Kinyarwanda.

We believe having access to culturally and linguistically relevant information is crucial in allowing people to lift themselves out of poverty, and we hope to scale our model across the developing world. We are humbled by the support we have received from Knight Foundation, and we are actively seek partnerships and opportunities to spread our mission far and wide. Library For All is committed to making knowledge accessible to every person on the planet. Join us to let the world read.

For more information on how to get involved, please visit libraryforall.org or email katherine@libraryforall.org.