In another installment of our “Five For Freedom” interview series Uhuru presents our latest guest, Mr. Patrick Plonski. Pat started as Executive Director of Books For Africa (www.booksforafrica.org) on January 1, 2003 after leaving the University of Minnesota where he served as Executive Director of the Minnesota Agricultural Education Leadership Council.

1.) So why was Books For Africa (BFA) originally created and are you achieving your mission?

“Books For Africa was created in 1988 when our founder, Mr. Tom Warth, sold his publishing company and was traveling in Africa. He visited a library in Jinja, Uganda, that was brand new with everything (including a librarian) but almost no books. So he traveled back to the U.S. And sent some books along with some of his publishing friends. It went so well, they created BFA to keep sending more and the rest is history! We will send 20 million books by the end of next year, our 20th anniversary.”

2.) From BFA's perspective in which African country have you been most successful, in which African country have your efforts failed, and why?

“We have been most successful in countries where English is an official language and there is a certain level of stability and infrastructure. Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Southern Uganda, Nigeria, and Liberia (now that there is peace there) are countries where we have sent a lot of books. Failures, such as they are, are in countries that are very geographically remote (i.e. Chad, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo) and hence difficult in which to ship. Countries that are unstable (i.e. Southern Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc.) have also been problematic as the books would disappear or there are more pressing issues, such as survival. Finally, we have not had much success in French West Africa or Arabic North Africa as there is less demand for English-language books. That’s ok though ... We are a demand-driven organization and we don’t want to send our books to where they are not wanted or needed.”