All of this is thanks to READ (Rural Education and Development) Global, which is transforming the lives of villagers throughout Nepal.  READ is an independent 501(c)3 created in 1991 by the tour company Myths and Mountains. Although Myths and Mountains conducts tours to as many as 17 different countries, visiting the READ libraries of Nepal adds a whole new dimension to traditional sightseeing itineraries.

I early on recognized that the term “library” was a misnomer; “community resource center” is a much more accurate description. Yes, there are books – numbering from 900 in the smaller centers to 8000 and growing, in Nepalese, English, Tibetan  and Hindi, in the larger ones – but the list of services offered, which vary according to the specific needs of the village, include literacy classes, computer training, early childhood education and day care, women’s empowerment programs, micro-financing and credit services, health, nutrition and AIDS-awareness information and more.

But first, some background. Dr. Antonia (Toni) Neubauer, president of Myths and Mountains, first visited Nepal in 1984, and started her tour company four years later. During a trek to the Everest region that same year, knowing she wanted to give something back to the country she had come to love,  she asked her guide, Ang Domi Lama Sherpa,  “What is it your village needs most?” His reply: a library.

She started collecting money herself and then through Myths and Mountains. As a result, 8 porters carried 900 books over a 12,000 foot pass into the remote village of Junbesi, and READ’s first Community Library and Resource Center opened in Domi’s hometown in 1991. He moved to New York shortly thereafter and does not know that he has since become a national hero.

Early on, Toni learned of other well-meaning efforts in many countries which ultimately failed because they had been started and abandoned without becoming economically viable. A local headmaster told her, “Westerners build us clinics, build us schools and then leave and expect us to take care of them, but we are just poor farmers.” And she realized that although “we had the best of intentions, we were just creating liabilities for a village rather than funding an asset.” From the beginning she knew that if the library (read Community Resource Center) was not self-sustaining, it would not work; it had to be an economic asset as well as a social and educational one.

Thus, the village of Tukche has a furniture factory; Jhuwani operates an ambulance service; Jomsom rents out storefronts which sell crafts, produce and other necessities, and the Laxmi Library in Syangia built a radio station that galvanized the whole community and is now supporting a staff of 33 people enabling the library to pay off all its loans and become financially secure. The more successful the underlying financial enterprise, the more successful the community center.

And the centers’ impact on the villages is life-altering. Many are in remote areas in which children did not attend school, women could not read, and men could not support their families. Now, teachers and librarians trained by READ are providing education for young children throughout Nepal. Women are gathering together in village after village to not only learn to read but become economically self-sufficient while finding strength through numbers to resist the domestic violence that is often so pervasive among families in poverty. According to READ, the return rate on investment of micro-financing projects for women is 99%. And men and women are working together to create financially successful projects to support and sustain the libraries.

Everywhere we traveled, community leaders paid homage to Toni through some variation of the sentiments expressed by the president of the Jhuwani Library: “She removed a cloud of ignorance and illiteracy from our village, and replaced it with education, self-respect and prosperity.” And her response was always one of gratefulness to the villagers who, in creating their own dream, made her vision possible.

Because there is ongoing political turmoil in Nepal, all libraries and the different factions within the communities have to agree in writing to be Zones of Peace – non-political, non-religious, non-governmental. As of 2018, there are 66 centers from one end of the country to another, 128 sustaining enterprises supporting the centers, and 1,900,000 Nepalis have access to READ Library Centers. Moreover, libraries across the country have formed a coalition – the Nepal Community Library Association – and are now trading ideas and success stories and are themselves lobbying the government for even more support in building in rural areas.

According to Toni, this is a crucial development: “The idea of Nepalese having a sense of their own power in furthering the libraries is still in its infancy but has tremendous potential for future development.”

And her efforts have not gone unrecognized domestically. In 2006, READ Nepal received the Bill and Melissa Gates $1 million Access to Learning Award, which allowed READ to pursue similar efforts in India and Bhutan. And at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting held in September 2010, Bill Clinton announced READ’s commitment to empower 16,000 women and adolescent girls in rural Bhutan, India and Nepal during the next four years by building 20 women’s centers within new READ Library and Community Resource Centers.

Traveling from library to library, hearing story after story of how the centers have brought hope and prosperity beyond imagination, affected me in ways no monument, scenic byway or sightseeing tour ever could. The excitement, so emotionally heartfelt, among all the people there was infectious. I left each library filled with awe and respect for what all these people – young and old, men and women, READ staffers and community volunteers – have accomplished, and though admittedly misplaced, even a sense of personal pride on Toni’s behalf.

So yes, we visited temples, shrines and monasteries galore. We trekked the Annapurna Circuit for hours. We rode elephants in the Chitwan Jungle. And learned of the Buddhist and Hindu cultures. In that sense it was a tour like any other. But seeing the country through the eyes of READ Global was an enlightening and inspirational experience that no ordinary tour can equal.

For more information visit Myths and Mountains and READ Global

The post Nepal: Changing Lives One Library at a Time appeared first on Traveling Archive.

A mystical, magical land filled with pagodas, temples, shrines, stupas and monasteries – of which we saw more than our share – plus the other de rigueur sites traversing lakes and mountains, city and country, caves and cooking classes.

But it is the local markets, small villages and contacts with people leading their everyday lives, usually in the form of making something by hand, that so enrich both the trip and the country. By way of introduction, men wear long plaid skirts called longyis tied at the waist with huge protruding knots; women smear a yellow paste made from Thanaka bark on their faces, in a variety of configurations that acts as sunscreen, skin tightener and coolant. I wasn’t tempted to replicate either fashion statement.

The story of everyday life is everywhere. And everywhere people are making things by hand, often out of materials which are themselves hand-made. We visited a shoemaker – ironically one of few places we didn’t have to remove ours, a de rigueur exercise at every pagoda – who is the only person in Myanmar to make shoes for people with disabilities, by hand of course.

Silver smiths and weavers and lacquer workshops, a parasol factory, a textile workshop, a bronze casting arena, sellers of jade and teak furniture – and everywhere the labor-intensive levels of individual craftsmanship are awe-inspiring. It’s like watching God individually mold the different segments of the moon over a month’s time, and then painting each night’s lunar orb with different brushes tinged with hues of gold and yellow, red and white with painstaking precision. That’s the level of Myanmar artistry. At a going rate of about $4 a day. But hey, sometimes that includes lunch!

Our local connection continued at a street-long Jade Market comprised of huge slabs not yet chiseled to the tiniest of stones to a comparably-sized market of marble with statues, not surprisingly mostly of Buddhas, in every stage of development from mammoth to miniscule. Workers carving, scraping, hammering, polishing, painting, washing – blocks and blocks (referring here to streets as opposed to slabs) populated by green and white images of various sizes. Onto another workshop in a different medium – this time wood carving. More hammering – also whirring, smoothing, tapping, pounding, appliquéing – and this time Buddha had company; many animals, women in prayer and other decorative items made of teak.

More everyday life is evident on Yangon’s Circular train which takes workers, students, vendors, shoppers to wherever they need to be for a mere 30 cents for a 3-hour round trip. The fact that the train we were waiting for arrived on the other side of the platform fazed no one, so naturally, we just crossed the tracks. In the States, we’d be arrested – or worse, dead. The train was rundown and crowded – but cheap and functional not unlike the markets. Rumor has it that all modes of transportation are being renovated in the last two years under State Counselor Aung Sun Suu Kyi, known affectionately to the locals as “The Lady.”

A young boy walked the aisles selling strawberries, limes, mangoes and oranges, for 50 cents – a roving supermarket. And to think on Washington, D.C.’s Metro, we can’t even bring our own food aboard.  This exposure to a slice of life in Myanmar brought with it multiple slices of fruit, as well…

And more fruit, as well as every other aspect of the Burmese diet show up at the local markets which are teeming with people selling and cooking all kinds of foods and trinkets. The babble of unfamiliar background noises lends its own exotic flavor to the compendium of other more tangible flavors. Clothing as colorful as the red, yellow, green and orange fruits. Every inch on both sides of the narrow street, as well as right down its center, is covered with all kinds of veggies and meats and pasta, some familiar, some totally unidentifiable. Negotiating among the throngs of people and produce presents its own challenge. Vendors sitting on their haunches for hours in positions I suspect we would find difficult maintaining for more than a minute.

And now time for our aforementioned lunch at the monastery, a veritable vegetarian feast set out upon the floor. In further conversation, I found out I reminded our monk of his 86-year-old mother – which occasioned more pictures, of course, this time on his tablet. At my age, this was not a fact I found particularly pleasing, but he seemed so delighted at the idea, that I became so, as well.  Aung Pan Kyaung Tike imparted several Buddhist lessons in casual conversation: you can’t bring anything with you to the next life so might as well give away everything you have. And so it is with the monks, who have no material accumulations of their own but survive on the contributions of others in the community as well as benevolent donors. Because of them, his monastery supports a school in a small village that had none and is currently building a monastery there as well. As to a day in the life of? They awake at 4 a.m., meditate and recite 108 Buddhist mantras before breakfast, head out into the community with their “begging bowls,” and pretty much pray and chant throughout the rest of the day. Lunch is their last meal of the day. Not an easy life for a non-believer like me.

But from monk to merchant, jade cutter to parasol maker, shoemaker to silversmith, the people of Myanmar add a rich diversity to a country known primarily for its many stunning edifices devoted to Buddha and his followers. For more information, contact Myths and Mountains.

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