For Prospective Participants

To get started, click here to take our take our online tutorial and register!

Visit the Hopeful Voices website to download this powerful new collection of essays by children from around the world who want to share life lessons from the intense challenges they've faced.

During the course of any given school year, your students are already engaged in a variety of nonfiction writing activities in different subject areas (English, science, social studies, etc). They complete worksheets, conduct research, write reports and essays, and create visual aids to supplement their projects.

Through Books of Hope, you simply take these assignments and turn them into short, 5-15 page "books" that go to your sister school in Uganda, where they are used as instructional materials by children who need to learn English along with other subject matter but don't have access to books.

Your students instantly become authors for an eager audience of their peers, while reinforcing their own learning by "teaching" about the material through writing their book.

+Materials to Download and Print

Pre-Registration Packet
We've designed a pre-registration packet to answer your questions and help prepare your school for participation in Books of Hope!

Books of Hope Flyer

Facilitator Packet
This gets mailed out to all schools after they register.

Book Topics and Descriptions

Supplies that are needed by our Sister Schools

+Participation Fee

Participating in Books of Hope is actually cheaper than shipping your donations independently through the post office or another parcel service. Plus, with Books of Hope, you get the benefit of our relationships in Uganda, a guarantee that your donations will reach safely, feedback from your sister school, and accountability that your donations are being used appropriately.

Check out our Cost Comparison page for more information!

+The 2009-2010 Participation Fee

The participation fee for the 2009-2010 school year is:

$125 to send 1 box
This is generally best for small groups or a single classroom

$225 for 2-3 boxes
This is generally best for 2-4 classrooms

$50 for each additional box
For example, $275 for 4 boxes, $325 for 5 boxes, etc.

The boxes can include any combination of student-made books, donated books, and donated supplies

There is no weight limit on any of the boxes, and we encourage you to fill them to the very, very top for the sake of stability during shipping.

We ask all participants to use the United States Postal Service "ReadyPost 15 x 12 x 10-inch Mailing Carton"

These boxes are available at your local US Post Office and cost $3.19 per box. This cost is not included in your registration fee.

You can fit as much as possible into these boxes, as box weight is not a factor in your fee. In fact, for the sake of stability, we encourage you to pack them to the very, very top.

+What your fee does NOT include:

Your participation fee does NOT include:

Cost of purchasing the United States Postal Service "ReadyPost 15 x 12 x 10-inch Mailing Carton". At the moment this is $3.19 per box.

Domestic shipping to our United States warehouse. This address will be made available to registered schools, and you are welcome to use whichever parcel service gives you the best rate (USPS, UPS, FedEx, etc).

Just to give you an estimate, if you are sending a 35 pound box of books and supplies, you could use the USPS Parcel Post rate which is $24.08 per box. If you were only sending books, you could use the USPS Media Mail classification, and this would cost $15.64 for a 35 pound box. These costs will vary with the weight of your box.

Supplies and costs related to constructing, assembling, printing, and copying (when relevant), etc. your books

+What your fee DOES include:

Your participation fee includes:

International freight forwarding and customs clearance from our warehouse in the United States. This includes preparing the shipment and the documents and inventory that are required.

Direct delivery to your sister school (many of our schools are so remote that they have no way of retrieving shipments from their P.O. Box in Gulu).

Facilitating your sister school relationship

Books of Hope instructional & support materials, both online and mailed to you

Photograph of one of your books at your sister school

Dozens of photographs and a written update about your sister school after our annual delivery trip

Books of Hope has contracted with Dorothy Anena Otika of the Latigi Orphan Care Center to help with on-the-ground work during the times when our staff aren't there. As part of that contract, we pay Dorothy a monthly stipend which not only covers her work for us, but also a significant portion of her expenses related to her other projects on behalf of local children who have been orphaned by the war or HIV. In other words, we're supporting the work of a highly respected organization in Gulu and making sure that they can do their work even more effectively.

Oversight and accountability of how your donations are being used. We have developed extensive and ongoing relationships with almost 20 schools, their staff and administration, and a dozen government officials that serve Acholi children. These relationships make this project possible. Dorothy helps us monitor the status of the donations to your sister schools, to make sure they are being used for their intended purposes. Books of Hope staff also spend a significant portion of each year's delivery trip conducting evaluation and assessment in order to make the project more effective.

+Overview of the Process

A representative from your school or organization should register through our website. This person will then act as the contact person for all correspondence.

After registering, your contact person will receive an invoice for the participation fee via email. We ask that your payment be submitted to us within one month of receiving the invoice. We will send a receipt once we receive your payment.

Immediately after registering, your contact person will receive a username and password for our "Links for Registered Schools" page. From here, they can fill out our Sister School Selection Form and, later in May 2010, fill out our Online Shipping Form.

On the registration form, your contact person will have the option of immediately printing out our Facilitator Packet or having us mail it to them. If they choose to have us mail it to them, they will receive it within ten days. This has a summary of the project timeline, helpful tips and reminders, information about the shipping process, and handouts for other teachers at your school who will be helping to facilitate the project.

Within two months of registering, your contact person should submit our online Sister School Selection Form from the "Links for Registered Schools" page to be paired with a Ugandan school. You should choose a school that needs the kinds of books your students would like to make.

You can begin making books!

You can send ONE book or item to our office by March 15, 2010 to be personally delivered and photographed in Uganda. This is the ONLY way to get feedback from your sister school before the school year ends.

You will receive feedback from our delivery of your individual book/item as well as a photo and written update of your sister school by May 10, 2010.

Starting on May 15, 2010, you can take our online shipping tutorial and fill out the Online Shipping Form. You can access this from the "Links for Registered Schools" page with your username and password. After doing this, you will receive an email with our new warehouse address. You can send your complete shipiment of books and donated goods to our warehouse, postmarked between May 15 - June 20, 2010. Your finished books will be sent to Uganda via shipping container after the school year ends. You will not receive feedback on these books.

You can choose to send optional donations along to your sponsored school. Financial donations should be sent separately to our office address and should include instructions about how you would like the donation to be used.

+How do we make our books?

+What is the best way to make books?

ALL books must be type-written. No handwritten books allowed for the sake legibility.

Here are some other recommendations in case you'd like them, but this is only one way to construct your books. As long as the books as legible, durable and colorful, feel free to experiment and be creative!

We encourage books with lots of text to be printed on a computer for the sake of legibility

Please use clean, easy-to-read fonts instead of flowery fonts (our readers are English language learners)

Once the text is printed, hand-made illustrations are great. Students are also welcome to be creative and use any medium they'd like. You can also collaborate with your art department for the illustrations.

Make the books colorful and attractive. Like children everywhere, our young audience is more likely to be drawn to a book that’s fun to look at.

Please include a letter and photograph (if possible) from the authors/illustrators. Rather than simply a biography of the author, this letter should be a message of hope and friendship to the children who will be reading the book.

Laminate the front and back covers; it's not necessary to laminate every page. It'll save you money and it'll be more ecologically friendly.

Three-hole punch or spiral bind the books or be creative with the binding. Just be sure the book bindings are solid and secure for durability. However, we don't recommend binders or photo albums as they are very heavy and bulky to transport.

+What kind of illustrations can we include?

SUGGESTIONS FOR ILLUSTRATING BOOKS

DRAW! PAINT! COLOR!
Cut pictures out of a magazine and make each page a collage
Collaborate with your art teacher and make the books an interdisciplinary project
Use a computer art program
Use stencils to make creative shapes
Use stickers
Use ink stamps or other scrapbooking tools
Use photographs taken by your students; students can even dress up like the characters and photograph themselves as if they were staging the book
Create crayon rubbings of different objects
Make a pop-up book!

+Do we need to buy blank books?

No, we do not recommend that schools use blank books. Blank books are costly for schools to purchase and heavy (and thus expensive) for us to transport. Blank books are also more challenging to work with, as students would need to cut out type-written text and paste it into the blank book. See below: "What is the best way to make books?" for our recommendations.

+Can we use 3-ring binders to make books?

No, we ask that you do not use 3-ring binders, scrapbooks, or photo albums as they are awkwardly shaped, very bulky and heavy and increase the costs of international shipping.

+Do you have any recommendations of companies that bind books?

No, as of now, we do not officially work with any companies that bind book for schools. However, we welcome recommendations and we are open to partnerships. Please email Abha at info@booksofhope.org if you have any ideas you'd like to share.

+Deadlines

Your individual book for personal delivery needs to arrive in our office by March 15, 2010

Your final shipment of books and donated supplies needs to be postmarked between May 15 - June 20, 2010

+Other Useful Links on Our Website for Potential Participants

Visit this link to learn about each of our sister schools in Uganda, see pictures of the school and staff, and read about what kinds of books they need.

Here you'll find background information on the conflict in Uganda and Books of Hope's accomplishments there.

Read more in-depth of the goals of the project, as well as news clips about Books of Hope, and thoughts from the Director

Be sure to check out our archive of sample books, photos and video

You can find frequently asked questions and answers about deadlines, payment, book delivery, book topics, school matches, book-making, our contact information, and more

Just click on a book to open it up on another page as a pdf file

Email:
School:
State:
Title:
First Name:
Last Name: