The past two weeks have been the most successful since the "Books for Eritrea" project was initiated.  The vetting and packing exercise on the 4th of June went better than our expectations.   It is very encouraging to see more and more people getting involved in the collection, delivering and packing of books.  Below is a brief summary of what was done over The last two weeks.

Book Collection:

600 more children books have been donated by Brent Libraries through Fariah Ahmed.  Geneva Adjie of Cricklewood Library has helped in donating more children books. Ghelila Masho, through her contacts, has collected and delivered 40 boxes of books.  Mike Chrimes

Of the Institution of Civil Engineers has donated 6 boxes of technical books. Sesin Seyoum has collected 25 boxes of books donated by Battersea Park Library.  Rezene Welde has collected over 350 books including good quality Encyclopaedia from Woking Library in Surrey.  Shewa Hagos has donated 8 boxes of books with pledges to donate more at the end of June.  We were not able to collect books donated by New Internationalist, based in Oxford, in time and the books are now given to Oxfam.   Further books have also be donated by Zewdi Sereke, Senait Yemane, Samson Weldu, Dr Zerabruk Bairu, Bisrat Marcos, Kidane Eyob, Simon Marcos, Mebrak Gebreweldi, Milen Abraham, Huriy Ghirmai and Richard Walker.   If you have donated books and your name is not listed, please let us know.

Aster Sagai and Rahel Habtegiorgis have made great efforts in writing letters to potential donors and collecting books.

It is estimated that well over 2500 books have been collected over the past 2 weeks alone. We still need about 4000 books by mid July. If you have been procrastinating the visit to your local library, please do so as soon as possible, because we only have weeks left to ship the books.  The following have kindly offered to coordinate collection of books in their area.

Rahel Habtegiorgis is helping collection of books from South East of London

Simon Marcos is coordinating collection of books in North West London

Zewdi Sereke is coordinating collection of books in the South West of London (SW8 area)

Asmerom Abraha is approaching Libraries in West London (Ealing area)

 Packing:

 The next 'Wefera' of packing books is scheduled for Sunday the 09th ofJuly 2006.   Those who participated in the packing of books will appreciate how time consuming it is and we hope that more volunteers will come forward.

 Financial Donations for Shipment:

This is one area that we haven't made much progress.  Most donors that have been contacted have turned down our request for assistance.  We are still short by £995.

Donations have been made so far by the following:  ERA - £500, British Council - £500, Zewdi Sereke - £50, Aster Sagai - £50,  Hirity Tekeste - £50, Bisrat Marcos - £50, Anonymous - £5.   Total donations - £1205.

If you wish to make a donation, no matter how small, please send your cheque to the Action Group for Eritrea, PO Box 47775, London NW10 0EY, making your cheque payable to AGE.  Alternatively, you can transfer money direct to our bank account.  Our Account detail is:   Halifax Plc, Sorting Code 11-04-87, Account No. 00300025.

 You may also suggest how we can raise this money in the next 4 weeks.

 'Thank You' Letter:

It is important that we say thank you to those institutions that have donated books so that we remain in their good books.  If there is anyone that you would like us to send a "thank you" letter to, please provide us with their names and addresses.