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Nicole and Noah Prozan Photo provided
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Acalanes High School junior Noah Prozan and his sister, Nicole Prozan, an eighth-grader at Stanley Middle School, have collected and shipped 1,100 children's books to create a library at an elementary school in Botswana, Africa. The books are en route via freighter to Botswana's Dagwi Primary School, which has 388 students from preschool to fourth grade and 17 teachers. According to the African Library Project, it will be the school's first library and the only library in the village of Dagwi, a rural community on the border with Zimbabwe. The book drive began as part of a community service project the siblings embarked upon as part of the celebration of Nicole's bat mitzvah in September, 2015.
"Here in Lafayette, children have an abundance of books but in Africa, most students don't have access to the books they need to learn," said Noah Prozan. "It's exciting to know children in Africa will be able to enjoy books that we once read and loved but no longer need," added Prozan's sister, Nicole.
Bat mitzvah guests were asked to donate books and the siblings also obtained donations from the Contra Costa library system and the Storyteller bookstore. The pair's book drive was so successful that they have collected over 500 additional books, which they will use to start a second library in Swaziland in 2016. The siblings are financing for the costs of shipping the books through contributions, and by donating gift money they received from their bar and bat mitzvahs. Contributions can be made via PayPal to noahprozan@gmail.com.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA