Western Heads East Textbook Drive

A request from: Western Heads East Fundraising and Education Committee; International Conflict Management Course students; Librarians Without Borders; and Textbooks for Change

Our team members are working to plan, organize, and implement the book drive on Western University’s campus. The goal is to effectively raise awareness about the importance of educational resources in a learning environment, and will focus on encouraging students, faculty members, and publishers to donate their textbooks at easily accessible locations across campus.

This year the target textbook categories include, but are not limited to, Nursing, Nutrition, Medical Sciences, Health Sciences, Public Health, and Business Management textbooks. The aim then is to organize and document the books received, and send them to our partner universities in where they can be used as resources to students where textbooks are very expensive and not accessible. The fundraising goal of the drive is $1200, which will cover the cost of shipping these books.

Our hope is to raise awareness of the social injustice where students in the West have resources and access to excellent libraries and online resources while our colleagues in the Global South do not share the same privilege. We are hoping to be successful in collecting and shipping more than 500 books to our partner institutions. In doing so, these books will contribute to the education and well-being of students in Tanzania and Kenya.

We are trying to reach a goal of 500 textbooks by Monday, 28 March 2016. If you have any textbooks you would like to donate, please contact Raajveer Puri at rpuri8@uwo.ca. Collection boxes are available around campus in main buildings near the main entrances.