Reading Room Project

This week is a really big week for me. I haven’t written about it on this blog, but I have been working with a group of individuals in my village for the last seven months to start a community reading room.

Most people in my community have no access to books or computers in their day-to-day lives. The primary and secondary schools both have some books, and there is a library in a bigger village, almost 40 kilometers away, but there is no public space for people who are interested in books or technology.

This project is a long time coming. Ever since I moved here (16 months ago! Wow. ) people have been talking to me about a library. Finally, last July, an excited member of the Village Development Committee (VDC) approached me and said he wanted to work with me to start a reading room. He organized a village meeting where we presented the idea to the community and received public endorsement from the chief. Then, we invited volunteers to sign up if they wanted to be involved. Eventually we had a group of 12 from all aspects of the community. We have representatives from the schools, tribal administration, local businesses, interested parents, and young volunteers. Together, the twelve us had regular meetings. The VDC member became our chairperson and we immediately began fundraising. However, it was clear that we were going to need quite a bit of money to turn this idea into a reality. That’s when we decided to apply for a Peace Corps grant.

Peace Corps grants (PCPP) are a little bit unusual, in that once approved, the fundraising actually occurs online (kind of like a gofundme or crowdsourcing project). PCPP grants also require the community asking for the grant to raise a minimum of 25% of the requested grant sum. However, in order to submit the grant proposal we first needed to create a budget, find an appropriate space, and answer all the proposal’s questions about sustainability and planning, all while continuing to fundraise.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last six months.

It definitely has not been easy.

There were a laundry list of approvals and meetings to have with various stakeholders. The biggest hurdle was definitely finding a management plan that suited everyone (I’m talking months of meetings and discussions). Finally, we’ve been running around getting quotations for everything we’ll need to finish the budget.

Back in October we had a big fundraiser, which included a sponsored walk with a raffle at the end (1^st prize was a goat!). 

Working on this project has simultaneously been one of the most challenging and most rewarding aspects of my service. I am proud to say that this week we will be submitting our grant proposal!!! (If the network is strong enough and nothing goes wrong, that is. Fingers crossed). I still need to find a way to scan all of our quotations and polish up our application online before submitting it, but I am SO excited to finally submit our work.

I will definitely be writing much more about this project from now on, but I just wanted to introduce it to you all now, because we will need as much support as possible to really make it happen. Stay tuned!