One of our members, John Goodhead, spent a year in Zambia doing voluntary work in Chipata. Following on from his time Africa, the Club decided to support a project to send a consignment of books to Chipata in cooperation with the local Rotary Club.


Nonsuch contributed £1,000 and obtained Rotary District and Rotary Foundation grants to raise a total of £6,200 to cover the cost of a container of some 24,000 books.

Working with a USA Charity Books for Africa, the consignment is about to leave St. Paul, Minnesota and is scheduled to arrive in Chipata in March 2007.

Without a doubt the books will be of great value to the local schools, colleges and libraries in Chipata and are an excellent example of cross country cooperation between local Rotary Clubs, Rotary Foundation Rotary’s own charity) and third party charitable organisations.

Two of our Club members, John Goodhead and Mick Martin, are planning to be in Chipata when the books arrive in March 2007 and will be able to supervise their distribution to the community.

Chipata is a small and dusty crossroads in the Eastern Province of Zambia, and is a popular refueling station for overlanders on their way east to Malawi, west to South Luangwa National Park, or north to Lundazi. Formerly Fort Jameson, Chipata was the capital of North-Eastern Rhodesia until 1911, when Northern Rhodesia — later to become Zambia — was created. Now it's the capital of Zambia's Eastern Province and a fairly busy town with about 75,000 residents and more coming in daily.