Degehabur Library and Innovation Center

The first public library and innovation center in the Somali Region of Ethiopia: a single-storey, light-filled building where a town of readers, students, founders and makers can learn and build under one roof, set in gardens made for reading outdoors.

Degehabur has no public library, no public computer hall and no place where a young person with an idea can find tools, mentors or a quiet desk. SEED is building all of these in one institution. The building holds 50,000 books across fiction, non-fiction and a dedicated children’s library; a computer hall of 100 workstations with power and data at every seat; a reading room under a daylit roof; group study rooms; a startup space with desks and mentors for founders; a maker space with tools and electronics for engineers and tradespeople; and a research unit that studies the region’s education, farming and economy and publishes what it learns for the public and for government. Through international subscriptions and open-access programs, readers will also have access to the world’s scientific journals, textbooks and university course materials, so that current research and best practice reach Degehabur directly.

Outside, the whole site is a green lawn with shaded pergolas, benches and tables, lit in the evening, so that the gardens are as much a place to read and work as the building itself. Large windows along the front bring the garden in and let passers-by see the shelves and the people at them.

The library will be free and open to everyone: schoolchildren who need a quiet place to study, students preparing for national exams, adults learning to read, and anyone with a question and no internet at home. It is built to be run by local staff and handed to the community for generations.