Mike Essien knows the power of literature, especially during the formative years — how it broadens a person’s worldview, fosters learning and drives curiosity.
Growing up in Nigeria as a child, Essien said he was lucky to live in a home filled with books. His parents were both educators, and there was no shortage of stories in his home — something not all the other kids in his neighborhood could relate to.
For 32 years, Essien has been involved with Books for Africa, a St. Paul-based nonprofit that “promotes literacy for underprivileged children in Africa.” Essien, of Woodbury, serves as the country director for Nigeria, meaning he leads the book-donation drives for his home country. In 2025, Essien led projects that sent more than 150,000 books to young people in Nigeria, he said.
“Mike is very important for Books for Africa,” said Tom Warth, founder of Books for Africa. “I think he’s dedicated his life to helping the underprivileged in Nigeria.”
Warth said that since 1998, when Books for Africa began, the nonprofit has shipped close to 65 million books throughout Africa, and more than 5 million of those books have gone directly to Nigeria.
Container captain
Mike Essien, left, greets Naggita Mayimuna of Uganda, Emmanuel Ntivuguruzwa of Rwanda and Mirriam Owino of Uganda, as participants in the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders volunteer at the Books For Africa warehouse in St. Paul, Thursday July 14, 2022. (Scott Takushi / Pioneer Press)
Essien, an attorney and assistant STEM professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, first heard of Books for Africa in 1994. At that time, he’d joined a local chapter of Nigerian engineers in Minnesota who were helping with a book drive through Books for Africa, he said.
“From that day onward, I have been a volunteer in as many capacities as Book for Africa would even allow anybody,” Essien said.
Essien, 67, said he’s served on the board, facilitated drives and collected, sorted and delivered books by hand. Any way that he’s able to help, he has, he said. He even gets students at UW-Stout to get involved.
As a container captain, Essien helps load multiple shipping containers annually that each hold more than 20,000 books, which then are sorted at a warehouse in Atlanta and eventually make their way to Africa.
“We understand the value of books, and making sure that we put as many books in the hands of young people (as possible) is a dream come true personally for me,” Essien said. “It’s an opportunity for me to give a little back.”
Growing up in Nigeria
The passion is personal for Essien.
He said growing up in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria, his parents had a library of books, and none, no matter their subject or age range, was off limits to him and his siblings. Essien said having access to books and reading the day’s newspaper after his father finished it were some of his best introductions to a quality education.
He said he remembers reading a collection of William Shakespeare and being the only one in his class who had. He’s eager to make such books more widely available to youth throughout Africa.
“If I can do anything to make that a little less onerous for somebody, oh, you’ll catch me doing that anytime,” Essien said.
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A 2023 study of 1,422 South African participants by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund found that 40% of the households surveyed had no books at home.
The Books for Africa website states that 40% of school-age children in Africa do not attend school and 46 million African children have never been in a classroom. “Most African children who attend school have never owned a book of their own,” the organization says. “In many classrooms, 10-20 students share one textbook.”
Essien said the need is there, but it’s one that he hopes will not always be. It’s a dream he said he knows won’t come true in his lifetime.
“A world where children don’t have books is not one I want to imagine,” Essien said. “I know we’re dealing with it in the grand scheme, so the little that Books for Africa does in that space is one we must do because the alternative is awful.”
Changing lives with literature
Essien said he travels to Nigeria from Minnesota at least once a year, and that’s not as much as he’d like to.
There, he connects with Top Faith University, one of Books for Africa’s donation partners. Thousands of books have become available in the school’s library, and not just to students but to entire communities, he said.
“Invariably, I will travel to Nigeria and at a school or someplace there will be a child or a student with a book that came through Books for Africa,” Essien said. “There’s nothing better in the world than that.”
He said he loves seeing young people reading and will often strike up conversations with them about what they’re reading, knowing that Books for Africa made it possible.
“One of the biggest rewards is that I am a beneficiary of the work we do here,” Essien said. “Some of these books, even though they may not literally go to my family, they go to my broader family.”
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The mission of Books for Africa is simple, Essien said: “We aim to end the book famine in Africa.”
A child reading means their world has become a little wider, Essien said. It allows them to see that life is full of possibilities and it gives them the confidence to learn and try new things.
A good example of this in action is the story of William Kamkwamba in “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” Essien said. It’s a biography about how reading a book about windmills inspired Kamkwamba, a boy from Malawi, to build windmills in his own community.
“Who knows what a child would do when they have access to education, to books, and what comes from life for them is unimaginable,” Essien said. “The sky is the limit.”
Books for Africa donations
Book donations are welcome; children’s books are a particular need at this time.
The Books for Africa website lists donations the organization does not accept.
More information on volunteering or donating is available at booksforafrica.org.
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