VC instructor collects books to help African nursing schools

This summer, Allied Health faculty members at The Victoria College donated more than 1,500 pounds of used books to help nursing schools in Africa. JoAnne Settles, an Associate Degree-Nursing instructor, met Brian Meikle of Zimbabwe at an international event where he told her of the desperate need for educational materials to train healthcare personnel in this area of South Africa. Settles immediately sent a request out to her fellow faculty members at VC to donate books no longer used by the college. Their efforts filled 25 boxes with books that were shipped overseas this summer.

Settles helped gather and donate the books working with Rotary International and in conjunction with The Second Wind Foundation. Rotarians from South Texas have been shipping a wide variety of books to Johannesburg for the past eight years. Settles, also a local Rotarian, knew she had unique access to answer the specific request for specialty books in the health and science fields.

Settles and her husband loaded up the boxes of donated books and drove them to a collection warehouse in Houston. From there, the books were transported to a shipping yard and loaded into a container for the overseas trip to a distribution site in Durbhan, South Africa.

Containers filled with books travel in ships which would otherwise be returning to South Africa empty. Space is occasionally donated by the shipping company or leased at a very low cost. Used containers purchased for the shipping are later recycled into classrooms or libraries in various places in the South African continent. They are painted, outfitted with doors, windows, shelves, carpeting and electricity. The Rotarians in South Africa have a streamlined system to receive and deliver the books to remote tribes in the area.

Many countries in Africa are unable to supply a public education to all children because poverty rules. But without education, these impoverished countries will be unable to cultivate a workforce able to feed their people; poverty will continue to rule, and where poverty and ignorance rule, so does hate. Rotary Clubs in the U.S. and South Africa address the needs of impoverished schools and libraries by providing books and other educational materials in order to further both literacy and peace initiatives.

"My fellow VC faculty members really showed their commitment to education by so generously donating old books," said Settles. "Every little bit helps so tremendously; these books will make a big difference."