When the council quietly stopped funding the Mpopoma community library in 2019, most residents assumed the small brick building near the shopping centre would join the long list of forgotten township institutions. A handful refused.
Led by retired librarian MaMpofu and two former Mpopoma High pupils now studying overseas, a volunteer collective reopened the doors in mid-2020 with just 84 donated books. Today, the shelves carry over 6,500 titles and the library lends out roughly 4,000 books a month.
“Children walk here barefoot after school,” MaMpofu said, gesturing to a corner where four boys sat hunched over a battered copy of Charles Mungoshi’s Waiting for the Rain. “Books don’t ask whether you have shoes.”
The library now hosts free coding clinics on Saturdays, sponsored by a Bulawayo-born software engineer based in Berlin. Donations of books, both English and Ndebele language, continue to arrive from the diaspora.
on June 6, 2026
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