Rouen, France - A 30 cubic meter container filled with donated books left the port of Rouen, France, on Aug. 2, 2014, headed toward Pointe Noire in the Republic of Congo. Eight hundred and twenty cartons of books, the result of a three-month collection by dozens of volunteers throughout France, were destined partly to establish a "peace library" in Brazzaville and partly to be donated to various schools in the Congolese capital.
The project was initiated by the Congolese chapter of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF-Congo), concerned that few books and educational materials are available to young people in Congo.
With the support of Ambassador Jean-Marie Adoua, Permanent Delegate of the Republic of Congo at UNESCO, UPF-France carried out this book collection in cooperation with the Women's Federation for World Peace (WFWP-France) and the associations Les Dames de Cœur, La Case africaine, AIAPED, and numerous volunteers.
A large variety of general knowledge books for children, adolescents and adults -- used books for the most part -- were contributed by publishing houses, bookstores, libraries and many individuals. Several schools that were renewing their educational materials at the end of the school year offered a great number of school books.
The association Le Bouquin Volant, which has sent more than 860,000 French-language books to French-speaking countries in the past ten years, for which it was awarded a prize from the Académie Française in 2013, contributed to the project nearly 4000 books.
Over a period of three months, more than 35,000 books were thus collected, individually registered on a special software, packed and stored by dedicated volunteers who felt that this great project would make a lot of people in Congo happy.
Having met in the process a group of Congolese living in France who, through an association called ADELIA, support their country by regularly sending books and educational material, organizers invited to place in the container several boxes of used computers and books which they sent to the region of La Bouenza.
UPF is committed to continue the "Books for Congo" project and hopes to gradually expand it to other nations in Africa.