Photos have been removed from this issue because of a law in Kenya requiring strict documentation for photos and videos featuring school children.
With unwavering grit and hearts like yours beside us, we turned obstacles into access and challenges into change. We’d love for you to see the impact you helped ignite.
Impact begins with one heart, and grows with every child it touches.
This simple truth sits at the core of everything we do. What starts as a single act of generosity – one book, one supporter, one moment of belief – multiplies into opportunities that reach across classrooms, communities and entire countries. Each child who opens a book gains not only knowledge, but confidence, imagination, and a wider view of what their future can hold.
This year, your support helped us plant those seeds of possibility in places where resources are scarce but potential is abundant. Together, we’ve transformed obstacles into access, and access into lasting impact… one child at a time.
Mission: Libraries for Kids International establishes reference libraries in African rural schools to expand educational opportunities for their students.
Vision:
- Short Term: Create libraries in all 20,000+ rural schools in Kenya
- Medium Term: Expand into other African countries, including Uganda, Ghana, Namibia
- Long Term: Expand to a continent-wide operation wherever there are rural schools with little or no electricity or internet access.
At Libraries for Kids International, we believe that real change begins with perseverance, heart and an unwavering commitment to children who simply need a chance. That is why we chose GRIT as our 2025 Word of the Year. GRIT captures the spirit that drives every mile a book travels, every rural school we support and every child whose world expands the moment they open a page:
GRIT is more than a word. It was our mindset for 2025:
- Grounded in Integrity,
- Rooted in Respect,
- Inspired by Impact
- Tuned to Transparency and Tenacity as we expand access to books across rural communities.
Across East Africa, rural schools face challenges that require resilience and yet, every day, students and teachers show extraordinary determination to learn, lead and dream. Their perseverance inspires our own!
With GRIT as our compass, we enter 2026 ready to push harder, reach farther, and make an even deeper impact.
With GRIT, we moved from pilot deliveries to a scalable pipeline that opens worlds for children – one school, one container, one book at a time.
- When we started in 2019, we began with pilot shipments to Kenya (Amboseli & Kitui). 194 books delivered and a handful of schools, growing to 9 schools by March 2020.
- Today in 2025 we’ve reached 1,456,476 cumulative books and 10,177 rural primary schools served across Kenya. We have served more than 2.5+ million children.
- Our 2030 target puts us on track for 4,106,476 cumulative books and 40,252 schools reached, with more than 10+million children served.
Thank you for standing with us.
Every book shipped, every school reached, and every child whose world has opened a little wider is possible because of people like you. Your generosity fuels hope, strengthens communities, and proves, every single day, that when we act with heart, children rise with possibility. But our work is far from finished. We invite you to join our mission to bring books, opportunity, and imagination to rural schools across Africa. Help us reach more classrooms, empower more teachers, and ignite the potential of thousands more children who are waiting for a chance to learn.
The Entire Libraries For Kids Team
