SLJ School Library Journal by Kara Yorio November 11, 2024
Andrea Trudeau returned from a trip to Africa a different person. Visiting places with such immense poverty “changes you as a human,” she says.
During the summer of 2022, as a Fulbright-Hays scholar, the middle school library information specialist from Illinois spent about six weeks with a group of educators in rural Tanzania and Kenya teaching secondary students at public and private schools.
“You leave realizing that there’s so much work to be done and that being there for [a few] weeks is just barely scratching the surface,” says Trudeau. “I left knowing that there was still something that had to happen there.”
Once home, she shared her experience with friends and fellow school librarians Tom Bober and Amanda Jones. The conversation evolved from Trudeau sharing stories of her travels and teaching to the three of them planning a future project.
“We just kind of decided, ‘Let’s do something about this,’” says Trudeau. “Why can’t we harness our networks and our knowledge and our skills to support the work being done in this area of the world and see what happens?”
The discussion was the start of Librarians Building Libraries, a nonprofit with a mission to “collaborate with library communities worldwide, providing resources, training, and innovative solutions that promote literacy and provide access for all.”
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