Not Your Ordinary Set of Wheels...

Meet World Literacy of Canada's Rotary Mobile Library!

In partnership with Rotary International, WLC's mobile library is just what it sounds like. Yep, a library on wheels. We're talking 4 wheels and hundreds of books, rolling in and around Varanasi, 5 days a week. Running since August of '08, the mobile library is a popular new addition to WLC's programming, and it's not hard to see why. As a natural extension of WLC's library services, the mobile library is a straight forward outreach program that services all people interested in books, no matter their age, sex, caste, or religion.

Manned by the ever amiable Uttam - driver, librarian, and community networker - the mobile library has become a fixture on the dusty roads around Banaras. Easily out-flanking all other versions of traffic in Varanasi (auto/cycle rickshaw, bicycle, motorbike, goat, cow, and anything else with legs or wheels) the van is imposing and instantly recognizable. As for me, well, I'm the "white foreigner-girl" who gets to go with Uttam from time to time, and it's so far been one of the most interesting aspects of my job.

After pulling onto a dusty village road and parking the van, it's usually only a matter of seconds before someone is asking Uttam for a book, or showing him a drawing they've drawn for him since his last weekly visit. I help out by hopping into the back of the van - the library - to tidy the bookshelves and choose which books to display. I like sitting there, on my spare tire-turned-stool, not only because it shelters me from the hot sun, but because it gives me a great view of the mobile library in action. From that vantage point I get the pleasure of seeing all kinds of faces considering our books on display. From serious looking men searching for a book on a specific topic, to tiny hands trying their hardest to pull a pair of curious eyes up to the counter - all are interested, and none go away empty-handed.

Uttam has developed great relationships with the kids in our field areas by encouraging them to read, to draw, and to play with educational toys. In fact, no field visit is complete without handing out sheets of paper and supplies to these budding artists. Sometimes we hold drawing competitions on site, and sometimes they work on their creations all week until our next visit. Although I like the drawing competitions, I have a soft spot for the drawings done at home. Perhaps it's because I loved to while away hours and hours drawing as a child, and I was never without a rainbow of colours and stacks of paper to do just that. I realize now that I was a lucky kid, not just for the food, shelter, education, and love (although that's alot), but also for the privilege of losing myself in my imagination, and for having so many tools to do that. Whenever Uttam enthusiastically unrolls a new creation and I see that proud smile light up the artist's face, I like to imagine that little person when she created it. Sprawled out on the ground and eyes focused on her blank canvas, her mind might have been freed from her everyday thoughts. Maybe she was captured by the floating images of her mind, at least for a little while. Some might say it's unrealistic, and others might think it trite, but it's something that I hold dear as a special privilege of childhood.

Capturing children's imagination is something that the mobile library does by offering a simple yet invaluable opportunity: a space and the materials to read, to be creative, and to play. But by equally feeding the curiosity of young adults and serving the elderly's need for stimulating diversion, the mobile library is a not only a van full of books, it's an open space that belongs to any person who's interested in learning. To me, the mobile library is a wonderful example of just how effective a development initiative can be when it sticks to the basics: Identify the need, provide the people a reliable opportunity to fill that gap, and let the community do the rest. After many years of studying development and noting how easy it is to stray from this simple formula, I know that I am privileged to witness it, and proud to be a part of it.