Las Anod, Sool gets FIRST Library!

Horn of Africa region has faced years of severe and prolonged armed conflicts, civil war and recurrent droughts. Due to those years of unrest, generations of children lost the opportunity to go to formal schools and other benefits of a stable childhood. For example, the region has one of the world’s lowest enrollment rates for primary school-aged children only 30 percent of children are in school and only 40 percent of these are girls. Further, only 18 percent of children in rural households are in school – according to a UNICEF report.

One of the biggest factors contributing to the low rates of school enrollments is extremely high rates of poverty in communities across the East African region and that is definitely making the situation difficult for parents to afford school fees. Furthermore, lack of conducive environment for learning such as libraries and fewer schools that provide high quality education to the under-privileged children are also among the major issues driving children from education. 

Education is a fundamental human right. Children regardless of their country of origin should have the opportunity to go to school. A good education is crucial to the personal development of individuals and their societies as a whole. When all children within a community have equal opportunity to get educated, it can cultivate positive change and growth.

To address that social problem faced by the children in the region, Give To Learn To Grow Foundation has initiated a free-public-library in the remote town of Las Anod. The Newt and Pat Tarble Public Library will be open by the end of 2019 for the children of Las Anod to access quality education and opportunities to make a successful transition to an independent, healthy adulthood, and a brighter future for the community - at large. The library is intended to serve as an educational facility. It is going to be a welcoming space where under-served children will have access to books, technology, and local instructors.

We’re excited to work with acclaimed Architect Omar Degan to bring a modern design to the Horn of Africa for The Newt and Pat Tarble Public Library. Omar Degan is an architect specialized in Sustainability and Emergency Architecture. He holds a MSc in Architecture for Sustainability at the Polytechnic of Turin (Italy) and CUHK (Hong Kong). Postgraduate school in Habitat and Cooperation-Emergency architecture at the Polytechnic of Turin. He worked in emergency contexts in Europe, South America, Asia and West of Africa. He is now focused on the Horn of Africa.

This library is part of Give To Learn To Grow Foundation’s life-changing programs that are established by the foundation to inspire and empower underprivileged children through the power of books to give them a path to knowledge.