Belle Isle and Après Tout Children’s Mini Library
While living in San Francisco, I took an evening class in International Relations and after reading “Storm Signals" by Kathy McAfee, I contacted ART (Agency for Rural Transformation) in Grenada and asked to visit them.
I took unpaid leave from my job and spent 10 days shadowing the staff at ART in the area of advocacy, medical, educational and – my area of particular interest – micro-finance. One of their projects involved helping a prospective recipient of a small business loan to complete his business plan to set up a chicken coop business. At that time the organization loaned a maximum of £2,000.
On a visit to one of their villages, Belle Isle and neighbouring Apres Tout, I asked the local village representative what I could do personally to help them. He told me there were 500 children between the two villages but there were no books.
Armed with my book project, I returned to San Francisco and using my own funds over the next few months, I set about buying and reading books suitable for black children that would help in their development and honour them. Within six months, I had a number of boxes of books and Mrs. E. P. an extremely generous woman kindly offered and paid all the costs to have the books shipped to Grenada.
ART paid for shelves to be built to house the mini library in the local community centre.
Post script:
During my trip to in November 2004, while in Belle Isle, I learnt that Hurricane Ivan had destroyed the books and the building that housed the library. As of January 2006, due to lack of funds and materials, the building still has not been repaired. Pending investigation my goal is to replenish the library.