JULY 2002
BOOK AID INTERNATIONAL HOSTS SIERRA LEONIAN LIBRARIAN FOR IFLA CONFERENCE
100s of librarians from all around the world will be attending IFLA in Glasgow this August. One among those is Sallieu Turay of the Sierra Leone Library Board, whose trip is sponsored by Book Aid International. The library board works in partnership with Book Aid International to help meet the information needs of the people of Sierra Leone. To this end Book Aid International plans to provide 17,000 books to the Sierra Leone Library Board in 2002.
Sallieu is a senior librarian working from the library headquarters in Freetown. Many of the buildings and resources of the library service were badly damaged or destroyed during the recent conflict. In addition Sierra Leone is the poorest country in the world with a GDP of $150 per capita (Source: United Nations Human Development Report).
In the midst of all these problems the commitment of Sallieu and his colleagues is helping to bring about great change in their community and reaching out to promote education as a key means to help overcome the significant levels of poverty in Sierra Leone. Restructuring and rebuilding the library service is underway with support from the government and Book Aid International. Books donated by Book Aid International are distributed to schools in conjunction with a reading promotion campaign. In addition vital outreach work is underway to meet the needs of the disabled, many of whom were maimed as a result of atrocities committed during the conflict.
In Sierra Leone, the library service is at the very heart of education and development. Sallieu looks forward to coming to IFLA and hopes to maximise the opportunities for networking, training and exchange of ideas that will help him to continue to improve the services available for the community he serves.