The August 2018 Volunteer of the Month is Julie Lessin! In 2009, Jane spoke at Julie’s middle school, Sidwell Friends, and Julie never forgot her description of the street children that Lubuto Libraries were helping. Now in college, she has decided that she wants to become a science librarian and wrote in January to say that it would be an honor to be involved in Lubuto’s work. An excellent and faithful volunteer ever since, she has helped us catalog our collections throughout this year. We have very much enjoyed getting to know Julie and have realized that the honor is all ours!

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This month’s Volunteer of the Month is Tamara Mzumara! While getting her bachelor’s from Murray State University in the US, Tamara fell in love with the culture of “volunteerism” among her fellow students. When she finished her degree and returned to Zambia, she was eager to find opportunities to continue volunteering, and we are so glad she did. From shelving and data collection to helping out with book clubs and DREAMS mentoring, Tamara made herself so invaluable to Lubuto that we hired her! While she may no longer be a volunteer, we are excited to welcome her on as our new M&E Officer as of this month, and we appreciate her enthusiasm in serving Lubuto’s mission.

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The Volunteer of the Month is Mwaba Chabo (pictured at left), who first learned about Lubuto through an online advertisement recruiting volunteers in October of 2015. A recent graduate with a background in Information Technology, Mwaba was immediately attracted to the opportunity because she loves to read and she loves teaching, especially teaching young children. And once she began volunteering at the former Fountain of Hope Lubuto Library, she was unstoppable—most weeks she spent nearly 40 hours a week at the library, working alongside the staff and assisting with Storytime, LubutoLiteracy, and more. Mwaba says she loves being involved with Lubuto because she has a “heart for people,” and “loves talking to people about the things they go through.” This was already evident to us, given Mwaba’s unique talent for connecting with the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach children. So when an opening emerged for us to hire an Assistant Family Literacy Coordinator to help roll out our new curriculum and its supporting software program, we thought of Mwaba immediately. We are thrilled to be able to say that after nearly three years of involvement with Lubuto, Mwaba was hired as a full-time staff member in January! Welcome, Mwaba.

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The November Volunteer of the Month is Beauty Nanyangwe, who has been volunteering at the Lubuto Model Library for nine months and plans to stay as long as possible. Beauty initially volunteered with the family literacy program and outreach. She is inspired whenever she teaches a young mother to hold a pen, and eventually learn to write. From volunteering in these two programs she has felt the need to spend more time at the library as a way of giving back to the community. She is now frequently doing many different activities with children, among them storytime, reference services, and activities in the tech hub. Beauty received a Bachelors degree from the University of Zambia, where she majored in Adult Education and minored in Civic Education.

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October's Volunteer of the Month is Lucky Changula, who has been volunteering at the Lubuto Model Library since he first visited in 2015. He is one of Lubuto's most dedicated volunteers, and it is rare that a day goes by in which he does not visit the library. Although Lucky has a disability that prevents him from speaking, he communicates well with staff and children using body language and sign language. He helps to keep order and direct children during programs such as mentoring, LubutoLiteracy, and movies. Besides volunteering, Lucky also enjoys listening to storytimes, watching Friday movies, and spending time with the many friends he has made at the library. His favorite books are The Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley's Believe it or Not! Lucky lives in Garden Compound with his brother. His brother tells us that it was the happiest day of Lucky's life when he was given a Lubuto t-shirt, and that he loves spending time at the library because nobody looks down on him there.

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Our September 2017 Volunteer of the Month is Namukaba Hichilo, a computer scientist who has helped Lubuto invaluably with his expertise in technology. Namukaba developed an app to make the new LubutoLiteracy lessons accessible and helped set up the internet in Lubuto Libraries. Recently, he facilitated a session on “Digital Literacy in Public Libraries” at our first annual public librarian training workshop. He is now attending Stanford University for his MBA, having received a prestigious Stanford Africa MBA Fellowship.

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Our March Volunteer of the Month is Mwilu Kaputula, a long-term volunteer at Ngwerere Library. Mwilu completed his Bachelor’s degree in Adult Education at the University of Zambia last September. He has always had a love for books and working with children. After attending a Literacy Week event at Ngwerere in 2014, Mwilu was inspired to volunteer regularly. He particularly enjoys leading storytime and hopes that his passion for reading and contributions to Lubuto helps to empower vulnerable youth and give them brighter futures.

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Our Volunteer of the Month is Sarah Rowman. Sarah is a Junior at Oberlin College majoring in Creative Writing and East Asian Studies and we were fortunate that she wanted to intern at Lubuto during the school’s January break. We were delighted to take advantage of her writing skills and threw just about every writing project that was in the works her way, including web content. She was a crucial sounding board, especially providing new ideas for the website.

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The January Volunteers of the Month are Jim Kurtz and Laurie Green, long-time friends of Lubuto who helped to build a bigger and stronger support base and have provided us with vital services. We found Jim through his wife and earlier Lubuto volunteer, Laurie, who got Bryan Cave LLP’s Washington DC office behind our work. She hosted a great Lubuto event there in 2011. We didn’t let Jim escape too effectively after he retired from the IRS because he prepares Lubuto’s tax returns for us every year.

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Our Volunteer of the Month is the wonderful April Wright, who we first met in 2011 as a volunteer for our LubutoLiteracy OLPC project. She has stayed interested and supportive ever since, most recently helping with cataloging and buying books for Lubuto collections. We are humbled by her amazing dedication in squeezing Lubuto into her very busy life and we are delighted by her conviction that “Lubuto is doing [what] libraries are supposed to do: not just serve. Solve!”

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