A couple of examples of NGOs

Negril Education Environment Trust is an NGO in Jamaica. You can find out more

about NEET at http://neetja.com/

One way NEET acquires books for libraries is to ask tourists to leave their books behind when they leave the country and bring more the

next time they come.

An ad on the beach in Negril, Jamaica soliciting monetary donations from tourists to help build the library system as a

means to improve education and reduce area crime.

Pretty much all of the books in this local Jamaican public library are donations from US (mainly Minnesota) schools.

Other NGOs such as foundations and churches also contribute to building and stocking public and school

libraries.

The Riecken Foundation is active in Honduras and Guatemala using a sort of Carnegie model of building libraries but only if there is a certain

level of local buy-in. You can find more info about the Riecken Foundation at http://www.riecken.org

The global economic crisis has affected Riecken efforts. They have stopped funding most of their libraries now,

leaving it to local governments to pick up the costs.

This change has pros and cons. The pro is that this change in funding allows the community to have a sense of self-reliance using the infrastructure that is already in

place. At this library in Flor del Campo, Honduras the community government decided that they will pay the librarian’s salary and pay utilities as long as they can keep the

books and computers and other resources Reicken supplied.

The con is that there are no funds beyond those basics. The computers are broken and the community cannot afford repairs, the collection is outdated and there are no funds for replacements. The library is used as a place for children to spend time after school rather

than as an information centre. Is this good enough? Maybe yes, maybe no.