A by-the-Book Plan for Ethiopian Relief : Charity: Santa Monica-based Parents International Ethiopia hopes its shipments of books will help provide long-term solutions.

In recent years, televised images of starving Ethiopians have prompted a massive outpouring of aid from relief organizations seeking to combat an intractable famine that has ravaged that East African country.

Whereas most efforts have focused on supplying food, Parents International Ethiopia, a small Santa Monica-based nonprofit group founded in 1985, has adopted a different approach to finding long-term solutions.

Parents International has waged its battle with books.

“The relief given by the developed countries is essential in emergencies, but it is not a long-term solution,” said Bogaletch Gebre, the group’s director. “In fact, it will only reinforce a sense of dependency if it is not accompanied with the means for people to help themselves. The solutions to the problems in Ethiopia and in the rest of Africa will ultimately have to come from within.”

Thus far, the group has shipped about 75,000 books to Ethiopia. Another 100,000 being stored in the Los Angeles area await efforts to raise the estimated $40,000 needed to ship them.

Parents International picks up free surplus textbooks from school districts, libraries and colleges, which offer books to the public before they are thrown away or sold for pulp.

These science, medical, mathematics and language textbooks are usable in Ethiopia, a nation of nearly 50 million people, because secondary education is conducted in English, Gebre said. Few advanced texts are available in Ethiopia’s major language, Amharic.

The Los Angeles Unified School District provides the most books. In fact, nearly 70,000 books sit at a district warehouse on Hooper Avenue. Because of budget cuts, the district plans to close the warehouse, and Parents International must remove the books by June 30, said Frank Thomas, a senior warehouse supervisor.

“This means we are going to need volunteers to help us move and catalogue the books for shipment to Ethiopia,” Gebre said. “We need everything from labels to boxes.”

Gebre, an Ethiopian who has lived in Los Angeles for 10 years, recently returned from making preparations with officials to receive the next shipment.

“The need is so incredible,” she said. “In the rural communities, thousands of students report to school and are sent home crying because there is no room for them. In many schools, there are no books, no libraries, no clinics, no running water, no electricity.

“The students learn from whatever comes out of the teacher’s mouth--nothing else,” she continued. “There are no other things to stimulate their creativity and expand their imaginations.”

The ultimate solution lies in helping the Ethiopians help themselves, said Susanna Dakin, an artist and volunteer with the group.

“The answer cannot be imposed from the outside,” she said. “It has to come from the people themselves with access to modern technology and the wisdom of their traditional cultures.”

Those interested in volunteering may call Parents International’s Books for Development Project at (213) 453-5690 or contact the office at 1645 18th St., Santa Monica, 90404.