Today I had a morning meeting at the international library in Stockholm, with Matilda Wallin, expert on children’s literature and a great interest in African literature, also active in the association Afrikultur.

The meeting ended up taking half day, because of all interesting aspects we touched in the conversation! And with me back to the office I had two heavy bags with fantastic children’s literature written by African authors, books that will soon be transported to the upcoming library in Nakamtenga, Burkina Faso.

Literature and books are super important! We are supporting initiatives to start libraries in places they do not exist. As a pilot project, we will start in the small village Nakamtenga, Burkina Faso, where reading and writing skills are still frighteningly low, and where access to books for ordinary people, is vanishingly small. We are now building a concept that we soon hope to spread on to more of the countries in our network.

We are convinced of the importance of access to books, for social development and children’s ability to advance in their studies. We want to focus on language stimulation on a broad level, arise curiosity and offer the opportunity to develop, both through reading, listening and writing.

We have great authors in Burkina Faso and in the region, with whom we dream to soon having writing workshops! The library in Nakamtenga will also have all school literature, so that school children can come and study, and do their homework.

We are in Sweden fortunate to have a fully functional library that provides access to both the art of literature and ancient classical literature. Swedish libraries are also an industry at the forefront of technology! We hope to develop exchanges between Yennenga Libraries and Swedish libraries, to make the best possible of this project, to support each other and open interesting doors to greatness!

If you are interested in literature or you have books in our international languages that you would like to donate, you are most welcome to contact us and join the Yennenga Library team!