Development Studies master's student Hayley Morrison started the Motorbike Book Club after a trip to some of Vietnam's poorest villages.
A recent fundraising event in Auckland by local musicians has helped a Massey University student add $6000 towards costs of running her mobile literacy project delivering books via motorbike to children living in some of Vietnam’s poorest rural villages.
The Motorbike Book Club is the brainchild of Hayley Morrison, a 24-year-old student working towards a master’s in International Development by distance learning. She and her older sister, Tamra Ewing, came up with the idea for a charitable trust after visiting Vietnam’s Thua Thien-Hue province on the north central coast region together two years ago. Tamra has worked there for nine years on and off as a volunteer for a non-governmental organisation Hearts for Hue.
Back home the pair got talking about what they could do to support the education of local children in rural fishing villages where they’d been and where a family’s average monthly income is the equivalent of NZD$30-$50. They spent the next six months researching the needs of locals, finding out what books were available and how they could make it all happen on a small budget.
They ran a six-week pilot project last year to see if their idea was feasible, and “because the last thing we wanted to do was be the westerners coming over with the big idea, so we wanted to see did they like it? Did it benefit them? Does it actually work?”
Children in Vietnam's poorer fishing villages have little access to books.
Empowering communities
Development Studies theory had taught her about best practice. “That’s the key message in development studies – rejecting this idea that west is best, and instead looking at participation and empowering communities.”
Ms Morrison now runs the project remotely from Auckland, where she has been working at World Vision alongside studying, as well as fundraises with her sister doing bake sales for colleagues.
In the villages, Dap Goc and Thuy Phu, where the Motorbike Book Club has been operating, families of up to seven live on small boats, says Ms Morrison.
“Few adults have completed high school, and while they are able to read words, they must read very slowly. Children face huge difficulties in gaining a quality education.”
“While many are comfortable with reading, about half of the children have no books in their homes. When children leave school they will often travel to Ho Chi Minh City to seek jobs as tailors to help provide extra income for their families. Other issues the village face are a lack of sufficient toilets and inadequate healthcare.”
The sisters have kept the project’s operating costs low at around $250 - $300 a month, and currently have around 300 bilingual books, which they've bought, covered with Duracel and shipped to Hue for distribution by a locally-recruited team of paid workers. Costs also include motorcycle maintenance. They plan to use the additional funds raised for the next phase of their project to expand into another village; start a monthly shared lunch to ensure kids don't learn in an empty stomach; run a summer holiday ready programme for the kids (two full weeks rather than once a week) and to get more books for teenagers.
The Motorbike Book Club is delivering bilingual books to children in remote villages who don't have access to them.
Dragon and bear books in Vietnamese
Because of a lack of books available in Vietnamese, the sisters had to find or create bilingual books they felt would be engaging and appealing, including favourites such as the Spot books, Puff the Magic Dragon and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, and have them translated into Vietnamese by hand. They’ve also developed creative activity materials and worksheets to complement the reading. Their aim is to not just loan books, but to cultivate creativity through literacy and to inspire children to dream big about their futures, she says.
As the project grows and broadens, they need funds for more books and art materials to encourage children to write their own stories and express themselves, says Ms Morrison.
Support for the project back home has been growing, says Ms Morrison, who hopes supporters consider their contributions to the project as a way to express their own passion for empowering disadvantaged children through literacy.
“A lot of teachers see the benefits in the charity and getting behind it, and the power of education to transform a child's life,” she says. “A couple teachers are setting up boxes in their own school libraries for teachers and students to donate old books. A lot of people who have travelled to Vietnam also say they feel a connection to the country and saw the need for work like this to be done.
The fundraising event featured folk singer-songwriters Holly Arrowsmith and Alicia Beauchamp, and poet Dietrich Soakai.
For more information, check out www.motorbikebookclub.org and on Facebook.