For a list of schools and countries, see this page: http://developafrica.org/education 

We accept used school supplies, but we ask that you send gently used supplies. Something you would not mind receiving as a gift. 

We accept school supplies in boxes of any size.  We recommend medium-sized boxes, no larger than 18"x18"x18."

It costs us, on average, around $50 to ship a medium-sized box.

We typically accumulate the books and school supplies for an average of 3-6 months (depending on the volume we receive) before we ship them out.  We ship them in drums / barrels like as you can see in this flickr album. We ship the drums of books / school supplies to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cameroon and Tanzania.  Frequency varies by country.

We generally send them to a shipper / consolidator who forwards / delivers to the destination country.    

We currently only accept children's books.  We are considering accepting other types of books in the future. 

We want to send books and school supplies to every country.  As you may realize, shipping to some countries is very expensive and difficult to follow up on. 

Additionally, we would need to establish a partnership in each country.  It takes time and extra resources to investigate and follow up with shipping, local schools, etc. - when everyone specifies a country. As a result, we do not currently support this.

The key issue in getting books and supplies to Africa is covering shipping and delivery costs.  It costs an average of about $50 to ship and deliver an average box to Africa.  This price of course varies from country to country - with some countries being more expensive and other cheaper.  We typically consolidate shipments and ship items in drums.

Shipping works differently in many countries.  In some countries, tax is levied/charged for even donated items (or there is a lengthy process to obtain tax exemption).  Also, the school will have to clear the items from a port in many instances. They would not be delivered to the school. 

Imagine a case where the school is 150 miles away from the port.  The school will have to send someone to clear the items and cover the cost of internally (within the country) shipping the items to the school.

We will be happy to set up a relationship between the school / center in Africa and your school.  Please indicate this when contacting us - supplying full details about your school, how you intend to do this and for how long - and we will get the process started.

Yes - we will be happy to provide you with a tax receipt for your donation of items to Develop Africa. 

Please note that the determination of the value of the items donated is up to you.  You can optionally provide a purchase receipt (if available).  Be sure to ask for one and we will get this sent to you.