Reading on the
street
By Fatima Grace Bapumia
Residents of Sinza have developed a new hobby of reading books,
thanks to Paul Luvinga, who has single-handedly established a street library
which is open 24 hours, day seven days a week.
Luvinga told The Express he wanted to render his service to the community and he
thought putting up a library would be the best thing to do. People can hopefully
apply the knowledge from the books in their everyday activities and improve
their living standards. “I wanted to serve God by promoting education and giving
my service to the community I am living in,” he said.
The Udzungwa Street Library is a product of an individual idea, stemming from a
guilty feeling for not contributing enough to the community. Luvinga said one
way, as practised by his friends, was to drink beer and indirectly contribute to
the revenue of the country through TBL, he however had other plans.
“All my friends drink beer and they create profit for TBL and then TBL pays tax
to the government. They also sponsor a lot of sports events. I felt that I was
holding back my contribution to the country. So I decided to establish a library
this was 1998, it took me two years to put up the structure and buy the books.
Now I am working on another project in a rural area” he said.
Since its establishment in 2002, the street library now organizes group
discussions. “We have four groups now: women’s group, small scale entrepreneurs,
medium scale entrepreneurs and educated people seeking for jobs. These groups
come to the library at their own time and meet once a month to discuss what they
have learnt from the books available at the library and discuss how they can
apply the knowledge to improve themselves and their business,” said Luvinga.
The Express witnessed a women’s group discussion where street food vendors said
they were happy to learn new recipes for their business. They also said the
library in the neighbourhood is very helpful because they do not have to go all
the way to the city centre for reading books. Since the library is open all the
time it is also an advantage to the housewives who can visit the library at
their own free time.
Luvinga’s enthusiasm to promote a reading culture in Tanzania is the result of
his upbringing by his father who placed heavy emphasis on education. “My father
was a pastor in Iringa, he only attended primary education under the colonial
education system, but he always encouraged us to pursue further education. He
really valued education,” said Luvinga who has an advanced diploma in
accountancy.
Leading a tour around the library, Luvinga said the library is named after
Udzungwa National park in order to promote the national parks in Tanzania. “I am
planning to build more libraries and I will name them after all national parks
in Tanzania,” he said.
The spacious, outdoor street library has three sections: a stock room where all
the books are kept; a conference room for group discussions; and a reading place
which is always occupied by school children. Here boys and girls from the
neighbourhood gather for private studies in the tranquil environment away from
distractions at home.
“It’s always noisy at home,” said the students collectively when asked as to why
they don’t study at home.
There are a total of three reading huts with comfortable benches and tube lights
for reading at night. The huts are called ELIMU (education), KODI (tax) and MALI
ASILI (natural resources). “I feel these three issues are very crucial for the
development of the nation and it is important our children get all the
information they need on these topics” said Luvinga.
Commenting on the success of the library, Luvinga said the area where the
library is built used to be an open space where boys from the neighbourhood
would sit in bands smoking and using foul language. Now one can witness a
different scenario with children quietly sitting reading books or doing
homework. Attracting readers from as far as Kibaha and Ukonga, the street
library is an ideal place for reading in Sinza, offering the tranquillity one
desires for concentration.
Compiled
by: Express Team
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