A few months ago, I started imagining the sort of party I would love to have to mark my 30th birthday. I imagined it would be by a pool or beach, somewhere outside the city. There would be music, a band perhaps, good food, and lots of alcohol. When I started computing how much all that would cost, I realized how expensive it would be, and that there are better ways to spend it than getting drunk (we already do that quite often, birthday or no birthday, anyway). So I decided to do something good instead, something with lasting impact, as a testament to my parents who, I feel, are responsible for my having some amount of empathy for others.
Deciding what to do was not difficult. I have a tiny whiteboard on my closet doors where, 14 years ago, I wrote the things I plan to do when I become rich. Some of the writing have faded, but I remember that one of the things listed on that tiny Fido Dido whiteboard is opening a privately-owned public library. Obviously I can't afford that at the moment. I haven't become rich as yet. In a few days, I'm also about to become unemployed.But there's a reason why I wrote that 14 years ago, and the reason remains true today.
I believe that fiction books are among the most powerful things ever invented on earth.
With the exception of Twilight and its vampires.
Kidding.
Not kidding.
But yeah. Books. Fiction books can contain whole universes on a turtle god, dragons and dinosaurs and... fine... vampires. They can show you witches have hearts which had been broken, and monsters are frightened because of their appearance. In between pages you can travel from eras to eons to light years, and wake up in another planet with a lying rose. You can be an orphan boy one day, and be the boy destined to save the world from evil, the next.With the right words children can escape the ravages of war and find worlds inside wardrobes where they can be kings and queens of lasting peace.
Fiction contains magic in the form of dreams. This magic, inevitably, informs the way we perceive reality, and the way we assess possibilities. Fiction helps us to imagine better, dream grander and somehow affect reality.
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| An excerpt from "The Nowhere Box", written and illustrated by Sam Zuppardi |
Fiction, as G.K. Chesterton said, is a necessity. Unfortunately, not all children have access to fiction books. Ordinarily, funding for books for public schools, if any at all is available, goes to textbooks and reference books. Donations of books usually comprise of storybooks for children, and would rarely sufficiently represent other genres of fiction.In the Philippines, children who could not afford to build their own private libraries or access school libraries, do not have convenient and cheap access to public libraries where they can find fiction books, much less develop and nurture interest in them.
We often hear Filipinos say, "libre lang mangarap." But we know that the quality of dreams that we have is largely informed by our experiences. What better way to improve it than to give children fiction books where they can vicariously experience worlds and eras and galaxies that they otherwise would never hear of?
So, with limited funding and a hope that friends and family will be happy to help because it's my birthday and because it's nice to do something nice, I decided to identify an orphanage where I can set-up a small fiction library so that the kids there would have better dreams, and would, perhaps, imagine and work towards better lives.
The library will be called Silid Pangarap- a room where children can learn to dream.
In the next few weeks I'll be posting more details on the project. We (my friends and I) have already identified an orphanage which has agreed to make a room available for the project. The children in the orphanage are already within the reading age (3-14). We will conduct a survey of the demographics to make sure that age-appropriate books are available. We will also be surveying the project site to determine what other materials/furniture would be needed to give the children there a conducive reading space.
I'll be posting a list of books that I hope we can include in the Fiction Library. These books are, according to articles, among the top 100 fiction books for children and young adults. I'm also trying to come up with a list of books by Filipino authors that children should be familiar with. To be honest, I am not as familiar with Filipino authors as I am with English ones. So if you think you can help with this, I'd appreciate it. We're open to donation of other Fiction books of course. Books donated by individuals will have a space for small handwritten notes to encourage the children of the orphanage to read.
We hope to open the library by June. After opening the library to the kids, we will be posting a calendar on this site, so that teachers and organizations can volunteer to conduct read-along sessions or reading comprehension classes for the kids. We will also be tapping some teacher-volunteers who can teach the older members of the orphanage to teach the younger children to read.
All the details of the project, donations (for books), name of volunteers/volunteer-organizations, and budget, would be made available and publicly accessible here so that those who are interested can replicate the project in other orphanages, public schools or communities.
In the meantime, here is a link to the
Project Proposal (as posted on Scribd).
For inquiries on the project, you may e-mail me
here.
