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USF Professor and Students Build Library for African Orphans
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Mark Kilroy compacts fill material in preparation for pouring the concrete slab of the library's floor.
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Orphaned street children in Zambia's capital will have a special literacy connection to the University of San Francisco thanks to the work of architecture and community design assistant professor Seth Wachtel and students.
From mid-June to the end of July, Wachtel and the students toiled under the sun of sub-Saharan Africa to construct a library that will give orphaned children improved literacy and language skills and access to general knowledge. Many of the children have lost their parents to AIDS and have been forced from their homes into life on the street. A lack of education almost certainly dooms them to a life of poverty.
"These children are falling through the cracks of an inequitable educational system," said Wachtel. "Though some are fortunate to have basic shelter and food at an orphanage school, they have no books to learn from. This idea to build a library for them was inspiring." He said the library fit well with his desire to find a project with a strong social benefit.
Wachtel and 12 students helped conduct research, create computer models, and develop design solutions for the library during both the fall and spring semesters last year, working with Eleni Coromvli, a Zambian architect and an official with the sponsoring non-governmental organization. Two of the six students who traveled to Lusaka then worked with Coromvli to develop and complete the construction documents while in Zambia. While most of the students traveled at their own expense to participate in the project, USF's Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good provided assistance to some.
During their time in the Zambian capital, Wachtel and the students began transforming a bare patch of earth into a hub of learning by laying out the library's three buildings, digging and pouring the foundations and slabs, and stacking concrete blocks for the walls. By the time they left, the library's three building footprints were in place and the walls half constructed. When local builders complete the library in October, it will encompass three circular buildings - an entryway, an art room and study hall and the main library. All will have thatched roofs, in the traditional building style of rural Zambia.
The library, part of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Lubuto Library Project, will eventually serve about 200 students who attend the Fountain of Hope School next to the library. The new library also will serve as the prototype for a network of libraries throughout sub-Saharan Africa, as envisioned by Jane Meyers, president of the Lubuto Library Project. The libraries will provide an opening onto the world, offering education, hope, and the simple pleasure of books to children who are alone in the world, according to the Lubuto Library Project.
This project's impact, however, extends beyond the children who will be directly served by the library. Wachtel said all the USF students, currently juniors and seniors, were moved by the experience.
"Working on the library was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life," said Julie Ehrlich, a senior architecture and community design student. "We experienced the joy of playing with orphan children, the thrill of working on a construction site, the pressures of completing a working set of construction documents, and the satisfaction of seeing it all come together. The whole process of building the library showed me that architecture can bring more than joy to the people you are building for - it creates a sense of community and self-worth for the whole neighborhood." 
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