Eden Prairie School Helps Collect French Language Books to be Sent to Mali
Local students, the Alliance Française and Books For Africa have joined to collect and send French-language books to students in French-speaking Mali in West Africa.
The work has included the efforts of Charles Cogan, a Books For Africa board member and a teacher at the International School of Minnesota in Eden Prairie. He has been working with a number of sources, including fellow staff members from the Eden Prairie school.
Cogan has also reached out to a French professor at Carleton College to help with the project.
He said most students don’t have an extensive library to donate, but the staff members do. As many as 700 books from those at the International School of Minnesota could soon be on their way to Africa.
The students from the school got involved by helping to lift and carry the boxes of books to the truck to be stored in St. Paul until shipped.
The hope is to collect 6,000 books and ship them from Books For Africa’s St. Paul and Atlanta warehouses to students in Mali. Like many African countries, more than 60% of Mali’s 21 million people are under 25 years old.