Books4Buddies Ambassadors Are Back in School

Sojourner’s Truth Staff

After an eventful summer that included two Back to School Block parties for LMHA families at Birmingham Terrace and Weiler Homes, Books 4 Buddies started the new school year by participating in the September Sickle Cell March and welcoming the group’s new Ambassadors – including two exchange students from Africa.

This year’s new Ambassadors from abroad are Joshua Mwashighadi from Kenya in east Africa and Ahmed Saidi from Tunisia in north Africa.

Also joining the ranks is the Books 4 Buddies youngest ever Ambassador, Jaden Jefferson, the 11-year-old journalist who has achieved national fame recently especially after encounters with Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey

Books 4 Buddies is an organization that collects new and gently used books for disadvantaged children and young adults. Over the years, Books 4 Buddies have distributed more than 70,000 books all around northwest Ohio and the world.

The “Book Ambassadors” are the students who coordinate the book program along with founder Laneta Goings.

One such Ambassador was Rafiq Lartey, who was with the program during the 2016/2017 academic year as a student at Scott High School. Here are excerpts from the report that Goings asked him to write upon the completion of his year in America and with Books 4 Buddies:

My name is Abdul Rafiq Lartey. I am 17 years old. I am an exchange student under the Kennedy Lugar Youth and Exchange Studies and American Cultural Exchange Service (ACES). I have participated in many volunteering services throughout my stay in the United States, however, one volunteering organization caught my attention and has so far won exceptional love and favour in my heart. I heard about Books4Buddies through my friend, Birama Ndiaye from Senegal, who became an ambassador before me. My interest in the organization led me to meet the co-founder Mrs. Laneta Goings. I told her about my interest in the organization and my intention to hopefully become an ambassador, just as my friend from Senegal was. I was accepted that same day and immediately started serving with Books4Buddies as an AMBASSADOR.

I am very happy to have been a part of this organization and I look forward to being a contributing factor to its success. It is my intention to start a chapter of this organization in Ghana and I am hoping all goes well and that can be achieved. I am a proud representative of the r and I believe, that not only my shirt but my life style will reflect this organization everywhere I go. Once an AMBASSADOR, always an AMBASSADOR!

Ahmed Saidi, from Tunisia

Joshua Mwashighadi, from Kenya

Rafiq was in the United States as part of the American Cultural Exchange Service (ACES) which brings to the United States students from more than 65 countries around the world according to Tracee Ellis, local international coordinator for ACES.

Rafiq returned to Ghana and did indeed start a Books 4 Buddies program there and organized a Literary Quiz Competition in the summer of his return at the Princess Diana Memorial School in Accra which he attended as a young student.

Rafiq returned home to complete high school and is now in college. “He’s been working for more than two years under the most adverse conditions and limitations including: time; riding on a school bus over bumpy roads, communicating with school officials and lots more,” says Goings about the Ghanaian Ambassador.

The Ghana organization continues and the group’s achievements were recently acknowledged by the school officials at Princess Diana Memorial School.

Copyright © 2019 by [The Sojourner's Truth]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 10/10/19 09:56:34 -0400.

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