EIGHT LESSONS I LEARNT FROM A DAY BOOK DRIVE.
I have always believed that changing the world required that you have superhuman strength or ability that will enable you to bear the weight of the struggle that it entails. Alternatively, I also believed that you have to bear the mark of a hero or wear a cape before people can notice you, or what you are doing. Or, you need to have a significant amount of clout, or else, no one will even care about what you are doing or who you are!
How wrong I was!
To think that change required more than a group of thoughtful, committed citizen(s) who has given themselves to a lofty cause or goal and will not stop at it or go anywhere until they see that that change they seek has been effected!
While many across the world have changed the world, and many are still changing the world, today, it has become clear to me that they were not fully prepared; they simply took the first step and did not factor in all that might mitigate against the change they wanted to see. Albeit, all they had in their arsenal was passion, grit, resilience, compassion and empathy, and it was all they needed to see the change come to pass.
In 2019, the amiable Children That Change The World (CTCTW) team put out a challenge tagged #3000BooksIn30DaysChallenge led by Jesudamilare Adesegun-David, and to our utmost surprise, people from all over the states sowed towards this project, even outside the country, that we saw a book donation of more than #1500 books in total.
It has always been a desire of ours to serve the underserved, so we wanted to make sure that those who truly needed the books got them, and to achieve this, we needed to get it to them where they were because it would be almost impossible for them to get to us.
We can attribute this to the fact that most of the people we want to reach out to aren’t online, and don’t have access to smartphones, Personal Computers or the internet, even though we run a weekly radio broadcast for the student community.
After the donation, we visited Schools, Libraries, religious institutions, villages, markets, e.t.c. We had a Book Drive with about 30 people actively participating (Team members and volunteers alike) with books evenly distributed to the different parts of the underserved community of Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria.
The Book Drive was a brilliant idea because the testimonies that we collated during and after from the students/children or the parent/teachers or the townsfolk was unprecedented.
The drive was just a day event that lasted for about 6 hours, but it made it clear to me — to us — that this was a step in the right direction. Additionally, it made us realize that we had made the right decision with the book donation idea. After all, we can not have too many books, but one ignorant person is already too much.
However, before — during and after the Book Drive, I learnt some valuable lessons that anyone can find as help if they are involved in any community project or intending to, especially if it is a non-profit just like the Children That The Change The World initiative.
- The first step is always the hardest: Before we put the call out for our #3000Books in 30Days challenge, we discovered that nobody had done anything like this before in our host community, and we were sceptical about people donating books to the cause or not. There were doubts, and everyone who intends to pursue any lofty goal will have them as well. To our surprise, we had donations from all parts of Nigeria and outside Nigeria, but if we didn’t take that first step, we would never know. Sometimes people want to help but have not seen a noble or lofty cause to commit their resources, time or money to, and we gave them the opportunity with the book donation idea.
- Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care: This statement has never made more sense than it did on the Book Drive day, as you could read it on their faces that these people are just here to share books and take pictures and they don’t care about us. (How can we blame them?)
Some moments later, their demeanour changed because they saw that we were genuinely interested in them, and we had no-airs of inequality around us whatsoever. We sat down with the kids — played with them — talking to them (one I can remember vividly is a boy roasting corn and the woman selling pepper), and it was clear before their eyes that we cared, and from henceforth, we had a hearty welcoming.
3. Project Empathy: The place of empathy in community transformation and development cannot be overstated. It should not tire us, rather, it should be our watchword, and we should always project it to whomever we meet. In as much as we wanted to be changemakers, we were not engrossed with the task at hand that we forget to be heart-warmers. After we had won the hearts of those we wanted to reach out to, it was easy for them to listen to us, hear us out, and some even prayed and wished us well.
4. Every human is a genius; young or old: During the Book Drive, we were amazed by some students passion and desire to learn — to read. As the book distribution was on foot, we had a car alongside that contained the books when we needed to restock or someone needed to take a breather.
However, we had to take the same route back the way we came, so we met some of the students who we noticed had finished reading the book we gave them earlier, and when they were questioned, without hesitancy, they explained the lessons they learnt while reading it. It was clear that every child is a genius, and all they need is for someone to make them see it and make them believe it, and that is what Children that change the world stands for.
P.S. The students requested more books, and we joyfully obliged.
5. Humans are social and interactive beings: After we had broken through the wall that separated us, as I explained earlier, it was like some of the students and parents were already awaiting our arrival, as it did not take long before they started to bombard us with so many questions, education and non-education related.
Since that was what we were there to do — to help them see the light — we decided to lighten their burden by answering their questions. Some had to speak the native language for better clarity as Ogbomoso is a predominantly Yoruba speaking Town.
6. Books alone can’t do the magic: I say this with a sense of caution because once we discovered that we have donated and distributed the books and our target audience were not literate, we became concerned. We needed to put a structure in place that will ensure that these books are used for what they were intended for in the first place. (As some can use it to sell Beans Cake or PopCorn)
What did we do?
- We collected their mobile numbers, and for those who were not mobile, we got their parents or guardian mobile number so that we can follow up on their progress.
- We decided to mentor those who had no one to help them read or assist them as an accountability partner.
- We started the plan to put a ‘Book Club’ in place (that is, a place where they can find people of like mind and passion, and we believe that this will encourage them to know that they are not alone in their learning process) which will be a project we will embark on in 2021 (we couldn’t start in 2020 due to Covid 19). We know that this will not only impact the students but the community at large. That is, a place where they can find people of like mind and passion, and we believe that this will encourage them to know that they are not alone in their learning process.
7. You can always ask for help: After the call for the book donation, we knew we needed more hands to help during the distribution, and we needed a set of skills that we were not particularly experts in, so we put out a call for volunteers. We had lots of people put in their entries, and with their help, the book drive was a success, and I believe that they also had the opportunity and the sense of what it means to be a part of the change.
8. Life will always offer us opportunities: I discovered that life will always present different opportunities to us, but in the ways we least expect it. As that popular saying goes, opportunities do not come dressed in suit and tie; it will come dress in an overall and look like work. These opportunities are all out there waiting for us. Sometimes, it will require that we look closely enough to see them, and once we do, we can commit to them, and the skill and experience will go a long way in our journey of becoming.
Since her inception in 2017, the Children That Change The World team have seen many students from different walks of life become better prepared for their future, and have not relented in this goal ever since. That is, to decentralize opportunities to underserved student communities to be the best they can be.
