"Librarians are the best human beings that I have known," said Yohannes Gebregeorgis, who became one himself just to prove his point. Using the experience he gained at the San Francisco Public Library, he founded Ethiopia Reads in 1998 to bring books and reading to children in his native land, where he and his colleagues have established 30 children's libraries in schools in and around the capital, Addis Ababa, and the city of Awassa.
Invited to speak at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston by ALA President Camila Alire, Gebregeorgis told stories about the development of the libraries and "donkey power." Ethiopia, he said, has the world's second largest number of donkies (China is first), and so he decided they needed to be harnessed in the service of books, establishing mobile libraries propelled by donkies.
"Books, books, books," Gebregeorgis said, "literature makes us human." He noted that in order to provide books for Ethiopian children about their own culture and in their own language, he becamse a publisher and has now produced 12 books, in a country where there is "no publishing industry there to speak of."
Many in the audience of some 250 were inspired to volunteer to go to Ethiopia and get involved in the literacy work of Ethiopia Reads, as well as to donate "a book and a buck," as the CNN Hero asked.