About Books for Life

Your unique gift of a book can open a thousand doors—to new worlds of imagination, beauty and experience. At Books for Life International we know that where there are books, there is reading. Where there is reading, education happens. Where education happens, poverty has less of a stranglehold.

The mission of Books for Life, an educational branch of Trees for Life, is to inspire children to read. We do this by helping local communities start or enhance their own children's libraries and learning centers. Books for Life provides high-quality, illustrated, native-language story books and other educational resources to inspire the imagination of children. The communities provide safe facilities to house the books, promoting literacy while serving as cultural centers for people gather to celebrate, share and connect.

We work with dedicated volunteers in developing countries who want to open doors of opportunity in their communities. Communities are selected on the basis of their enthusiasm and ability to contribute space and personnel for their project. These local partners determine the scope of their programs, including which books to order. We help provide the books. Our goal is to provide books published in that country.

Trees for Life, a nonprofit people-to-people movement, began in 1984 by helping people plant and care for fruit trees. Since then, it has branched out with a variety of projects that help people improve their own lives. Trees for Life began developing model libraries and book banks in 2003. The name Books for Life International was registered in 2006. Books for Life currently assists with community book projects in marginalized areas of developing countries such as Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Nicaragua and Pakistan.

The advantage of providing books through libraries and learning centers is that each child has access to hundreds of books and, in turn, each book can serve a large number of children-thus creating a multiplier effect that allows for the maximum use of available resources.

Your donation—whether one book or an entire library full of books—will open a door for a child to educate herself, for a classroom of students to become literate, and for a community to lift itself out of poverty.