Starting a Library
It is our honor to work with dedicated English teachers in Morocco, as they develop creative extra-curricular activities for their students. If you're interested in having an English library through our program, here are the steps we follow. We are grateful for your interest and for the opportunity to collaborate.
Basic requirements: The Moroccan partner should be a public school or a nonprofit association; and it must have a suitable space for books (which may be a dedicated room or part of a room), motivated students, and a teacher or other coordinator who can take care of the collection. We do our best to accommodate every request, but if we are not able to, we give preference to the more under-resourced locations. This program operates at no cost to our partners in Morocco and is run by volunteers in the US and Morocco.
1. We have an open period once or twice a year, so that new teachers may ask for a library.
We have schools already signed up for the 2017-18 school year, so in spring 2018 we'll start planning for the next school year. We'll have a Request New Library button active on this webpage and will also post a notification about it on the MLP Facebook page. The number of libraries we can help at one time depends on available funding for that period.
2. We collaborate with the teacher to plan the best collection for their needs.
We have an online questionnaire so you can tell us about the ages, background, reading levels, and special interests of the students; the genres of books desired; and the space you have to work with. We also discuss this further online so we can put together the best collection for you.
3. We fundraise in the US to pay for the library's materials and shipping.
Fundraising may or may not be done before the request is made. Be aware that fundraising is not always predictable.
4. We purchase new books and materials and ship them to the site in Morocco.
Once we have the funds, we buy high-quality literature and nonfiction. We buy everything new, chosen for your library with your collaboration. We can also send games, puzzles, and DVDs, if desired, along with small items such as bookends and bookstands. The shipping may be by USPS Priority International or by other means, depending on how much we are sending at one time. If your location is hard for the post office to reach, we can send your books to a school in Marrakech, where you can pick them up; in some cases, a volunteer in Morocco may deliver the package to you.
We will also provide an online book inventory, which you can turn into a checkout system.
5. The teacher sends a letter acknowledging receipt and, over time, sends feedback about the books and the impact of having a library.
The letter states that the recipient is a public school or nonprofit association and is a requirement for maintaining our tax-deductible status in the US. Your feedback is also very important and much appreciated — it will help us continue to improve the program and raise more funds to keep it going. Thank you!