Books For Africa Executive Director Visits Partners on Three Continents

Books For Africa Executive Director Patrick Plonski has been on a world tour, visiting partners in the UK, Qatar and Ethiopia. 

He kicked off by attending the World Literacy Summit 2025 in Oxford, where he met with partners including Little Free Library, Room to Read, the Just be a Child Foundation, the Child2Child Foundation, and Kenya Connect.  He also met with peer organizations like Worldreader and Book Aid, and potential partners in the future such as the DG Murray Trust based in South Africa.

While in the UK, Plonski also met with Awesome Books, a partner who fulfills shipments of books in British English for BFA. Most recently, they fulfilled a shipment of books for The Gambia. Awesome Books ships over 20 million books a year out of their facility. A potential future shipment to Egypt was discussed during the visit.

In Qatar, he met with the Somali ambassador to Qatar and the Education Above All Foundation, and discussed Qatari initiatives to improve literacy in the Horn of Africa region. Visits in Qatar were held in partnership with officials of the Minnesota Institute of Horn of Africa Studies. 

Plonski finished up his tour in Ethiopia, where he met with Ethiopia Airlines and discussed potentially sending BFA books on Ethiopia Airlines planes leaving the U.S. and bound for Ethiopia. He also had fruitful meetings with longtime BFA partner EKTTS and with new potential partner the Adwa Victory Memorial Museum Children’s Library.  Books For Africa has shipped over six million books to Ethiopia, and it is in the top 10 most served countries on the continent.  Finally, Plonski met with BFA partner ChildFund. ChildFund’s offices in Zambia, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia receive BFA books regularly, and they discussed how they could get books to ChildFund’s Ethiopia office.

“This was an excellent opportunity to meet with a great variety of BFA partners, and with potential partners,” Plonski said.  “I was amazed at the numbers of partners in various locations we have working with us, and the numbers of potential partners who want to work with us.  We look forward to collaborating with any and all like-minded individuals and organizations who want to partner with us to advance education across Africa.”

View more photos on our Flickr page or by clicking through the slideshow below!