The Library in Kindu

The city of Kindu has been heavily affected by fighting during the Congo Wars. Despite its more than 200,000 inhabitants, the city is cut off from the rest of the country and the world.

Kindu, however, has a university. But for students, there is little opportunity for academic research beyond two commercially operated internet cafés. Kindu University itself does not provide a university library of its own; there are only few books and some 50 journals available.
Students at Kindu University thus have hardly any access to study-related literature. Yet access to adequate specialist literature is essential for successful studies and our fellows have explicitly pointed out to us their wish for an improvement of the situation.

Therefore, we plan to establish a library in Kindu providing – not exclusively, but chiefly – academic literature related to the studies offered in Kindu.

Goals

With the establishment of a library, we intend to

• offer our fellows and other students in Kindu the necessary access to scientific literature in English and French
• improve study conditions in the long term by improving access to specialist literature and providing additional impulses for individual education
• contribute to the promotion of democracy. We believe that self-determination and the ability to participate require knowledge and information. Establishing a library therefore is a contribution to development cooperation.

Since the means we provide certainly will not be able to completely meet demands from the beginning, we intend to complete the library step by step and adjust its offerings to the number of students.

Concept

The library is planned as a reference library and will establish a pleasant atmosphere conducive for research and concentrated work. The reading room and the collection of books will be open to all interested. This is to give study opportunities to all citizens of Kindu.

Books will be collected via donations that we ask for in French-speaking countries. Thus we want to ensure that most of the acquired literature will be in the national language. In a first step we already contacted publishers and libraries in Germany and Belgium. The next step will be to contact publishers in France, partly in cooperation with ESF France, because we hope to obtain donations of higher quality in this way. At the moment, some hundred books are ready in Heidelberg.

Overall, the library will provide space for an office, a reading room and a stockroom. Via a contact person of a local NGO, we could already find suitable premises that we can rent when necessary. But first, we have to complete an initial stock of 1,000 books, cover the expenses for staff, energy and rent and collect the one-time costs for transport and construction through our current fundraising activities.