Lengdung Tungchamma: Why We Started A Library In Our Community

My father was a security man at the now-defunct Jos Breweries. He often returned home with newspapers from work. These were papers supplied to the office by various companies. After a decade of working there, he had gathered newspapers that filled a corner of our room. These were newspapers from the 1980s up to the early 2000s.

I returned home for a long vacation as a teenager and didn’t have much to do, so I started reading those newspapers. They became my treasures. I began by reading the sports stories. Then I read the relationship and marriage stories. Then I began reading the political stories. In a short time, it became clear that my knowledge of current affairs, Nigerian history, and socio-political issues was deeper than that of my contemporaries. All of that was because I had access to a stack of newspapers my father brought home. Unfortunately for my friends, they didn’t have access to these.

This disparity in access did not only result in different levels of information, it also led to different life choices. I knew early on that computers were changing the world and I wanted to be part of it. I had read a story in a newspaper about a 19-year-old who founded a social website in his college dorm room, and he already had hundreds of thousands of users. That 19-year-old was Mark Zuckerberg. The social media platform was Facebook. I wanted to be the next Mark Zuckerberg.

The wise words of Dr. Seuss, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go!” became true for me.

But why should I have access to these opportunities and not my friends? I wanted my friends to have the same chance. I wanted my community members to have the same access to information. I wanted any ordinary kid in the neighbourhood to be able to pick a book and travel around the world through it. Access to information should not depend on luck. I wanted the same opportunity for others.

That is what led to the Jenta Reads Community Library, a library we established in our community to provide books to everyone. Hundreds of community members come in every month, pick books, and learn new things.

Books can change the world. But they can only do that if those who need them are able to access them. I wrote Motion: A Jenta Story to chronicle the full story of how this little library is making a difference.