Chapter 1 : About Us
BOOKS ABROAD was founded as LINK in 1982 by Keith Brunskill, a teacher at Banff Academy. Derek Joy, a Missionary from Nigeria, came to speak at the Academy in 1974, and mentioned the great lack of books in his school in Africa.
This prompted Keith to start organising pupils to raise funds, and to parcel books for posting to Nigeria, and eventually to form the charity.
Originally based in a cupboard in the Brander Library, Huntly, LINK was later granted the use of space in the former Caretaker's Flat in the same building, Increased space, kindly provided by the North East of Scotland Library Service, thus allowed the development of proper storage and selection systems for donated books. However, in 1991 Gordon District Council (now Aberdeenshire Council) kindly gave us the use of a suite of offices in Rhynie where we have been able to expand our service even more. The name LINK was changed to BOOKS ABROAD at this time.
Books are mainly donated by local schools and North East of Scotland Library Service Libraries. Over the years considerable experience has been built up through feedback from overseas schools, the main recipients of this greatly appreciated aid. Funds are raised locally through Book Sales, Plant Sale and Coffee Mornings, Musical Evenings and various other activities which are held regularly throughout the year. Larger amounts are raised by direct appeals to Trusts. Most of the work is carried out by volunteers although we do have three part-time paid employees.
BOOKS ABROAD sends carefully selected parcels weighing approx 8kgs each (approx 50 books), direct to the educational establishments overseas. Emphasis is upon quality, good condition of books and of appropriate content for the institution involved, rather than upon quantity. Parcels are small enough to be carried to even the most remote sites without roads. Great efforts are made to respond to requests made by schools and other institutions, and when no appropriate books are available from our second-hand stock new ones are purchased as funds permit. In addition to this we supply atlases, dictionaries, health books, eg, "Where There Is No Doctor" and "Where There Is No Dentist".
The parcels are wrapped in clear polythene which speeds passage through customs. Recently with the help of local charitable organisations we have been able to send some of our parcels direct to schools in Eastern Europe thus greatly saving the transport costs. When appropriate we send parcels via containers to contacts within our countries for onward distribution to our schools
BOOKS ABROAD now has approx 1,050 schools worldwide(see country list here) which it regularly tries to assist with more requests arriving daily. The target is to send at least 6 parcels to each institution biennially.
A total of 348.3 tons (approx 1,741,500 books) have been sent since BOOKS ABROAD was founded.
Expansion of our Schools Liaison work in local schools continues, offering assemblies and talks on the Developing World to school children, as a result of which we receive donations of books and money. A 'Schools Resource Pack' is available for use within the Scottish 5-14 Curriculum.