Jane’s experience in library development and implementation spans over three decades. She has organized libraries for USAID’s Office of Women in Development, Sahel Development Program, Asia Bureau and other office to coordinate them with the USAID Library. At the World Bank, in the early 1980s, Jane established and marketed library and information services in the Bank’s central agricultural advisory department. In the mid- to late-1980s, under a World Bank-financed project in Malawi, Jane managed the establishment of the government’s network of agricultural research libraries and was cited in Science magazine for her innovation in bringing the first CD-ROM to Africa. From the early 1990s through 2001, she served as a consultant to the Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development, the FAO, the U.S. National Agricultural Library, the USIA’s MLK Jr. Library and Information Resource Center in Zambia, and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communications Programs. Jane has given invited presentations at conferences of the ALA, SLA, Pennsylvania and New Jersey Library Associations, library schools at the University of Alabama, University of South Carolina, University of Pittsburgh, Drexel University, Simmons College, the D-Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Brooklyn Public Library and the Library of Congress.

Jane’s innovative work on addressing the educational and social isolation of orphans and vulnerable children in Zambia led to the incorporation of the Lubuto Library Project as a 501(c)(3) organization in 2005. Since that time, as LLP’s CEO, she has worked tirelessly to advocate for the recognition of children’s rights, to better understand and serve the needs of marginalized youth and children, and to establish public youth libraries to fill a critical gap in educational and social frameworks in Africa. Her insights and innovation have been recognized in grants received from the OSISA Foundation, Comic Relief U.K., and a grant award under USAID’s All Children Reading initiative.

Jane holds a B.A. from the University of Arizona and a Master’s degree in Library Science from the University of Maryland. Jane has received wide recognition for her professional achievements. In 2007, she was awarded the Dow Jones Factiva Leadership Award by the Special Libraries Association (SLA) and, in 2008, was recognized by the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies as its Distinguished Alumnus of the year. In 2012, the American Library Association (ALA) awarded Jane the John Ames Humphrey/OCLC/Forest Press Award for International Librarianship, its highest honor in international librarianship. The U.K. Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals recognized Jane with its 2010 International Award and, in 2013, the Washington, DC Library Association recognized her outstanding achievements in the development or improvement of library and information services with its Rand Spofford President’s Award.

Michael joined the Lubuto team in February 2015. He focuses on communication and donor management for both the DC and Zambia offices. Michael also built the new website and serves as its webmaster—and helps to digitally preserve and archive Zambian books. He studied art history as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago and historic preservation as a graduate student at Columbia University. Michael studied abroad in South Africa and has spent time in Mozambique and several Middle Eastern countries for work and research. Before his time with Lubuto, Michael worked as a paralegal and in higher education administration. Michael has a strong interest in international development and is thrilled to have had the opportunity to visit Zambia and meet the children at Lubuto libraries in March 2016.

Kasonde began work with Lubuto in November 2013, first joining our Zambia Office as our Library Services Advisor. Kasonde is a native of the town of Kitwe, in Zambia’s Copperbelt region where he attended both public and private schools before continuing on to boarding school in the southern part of Zambia. Kasonde then studied under scholarships in the U.K. and the United States, where he graduated with a B.A. in History from Georgetown University. Kasonde first learned about Lubuto while at Georgetown in 2010, after attending a talk by one of our Advisory Board Members, Mulenga Kapwepwe. After teaching for a year at a private school in Washington D.C., Kasonde decided to return home to Zambia and give back to his community, where he then began work at a primary school that his family runs in Kitwe. Lubuto approached Kasonde with the idea that libraries would be the best means of pursuing his interest in social equity and education, and he recently received a Master's of Library Science degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Elizabeth began volunteering with Lubuto in 2011, and was subsequently hired to work as the Program Associate for Lubuto in Washington, D.C. She spent two years in that position before returning to her hometown of Milwaukee to complete an MLIS at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Elizabeth also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Development Studies from Marlboro College (VT). Before coming to work for Lubuto in Zambia she worked as a children’s librarian, the Operations Manager for an international high school program, and a teacher of English as a Second Language. She has previously lived in Ghana, China, and Germany. Her first experience in Zambia was leading a research project evaluating Lubuto’s book collections in 2014, and she is thrilled to be back in Zambia long-term as Lubuto’s Training Librarian.

Eleni holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens, and a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from U.C. Berkeley, where she advanced to candidacy for a PhD in architecture. She was the recipient of a NATO Graduate Fellowship and was awarded the Eisner Prize in Urban Design. She is a licensed architect engineer in Greece and a registered corporate member of the Zambia Institute of Architects. In her professional career, Ms. Coromvli has been a Lecturer in architecture at UC Berkeley, an Architect-Researcher at the Center for Environmental Structure, and the proprietor of her own architecture and urban design firm in Zambia. Ms. Coromvli was a team member for Christopher Alexander’s Eishin College project in Tokyo, Japan, which has been recognized as one of the world’s great buildings. Among numerous other projects in the US, she contributed to the design of medium-density townships in the New Jersey wetlands, high-density housing projects in Oakland, California, and the Julian Street Shelter for the Homeless, in San Jose, California. Ms. Coromvli, who has published in the area, is an expert on Zambia’s indigenous architecture. In addition to her work in designing and managing the construction of the Lubuto libraries at the Fountain of Hope Children’s Centre, the Ngwerere Basic School, and the Matantala Rural Integrated Enterprise, she has designed numerous commercial, residential, and cultural projects in Lusaka.

Hadassah first volunteered with Lubuto in July of 2013, and joined as a full time staff member a few months later. She is responsible for the data collection and analysis so necessary to evaluate Lubuto’s work, as well as administrative tasks and event organization. Hadassah holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Relations and Management from Ulyanovsk State University in Russia. While living in Russia, Hadassah worked as a Counselor, Function Organizer and English Teacher at Alliance Français De Togliatti and as weather forecaster and cultural presenter at Reporter Television Station. Hadassah believes that working with Lubuto has given her the opportunity to use her education and skills to provide a high level of service to the children Lubuto serves and Zambia at large.