This month was spent organizing ourselves, sorting our books, fund-raising, establishing our new Nargis business account, and setting goals for the fiscal year, commencing September 1.
Our directors met July 18 at Allen/Jackie Bjergo’s Bitterroot ranch near Missoula, David/Carolyn Leuthold drove west on I-90 from their ranch near Molt, Montana, Jack/Sue Simpson flew from Hyderabad to their Coeur d’Alene home, then drove east on I-90; I bussed the same highway from Edmonds, Washington to Spokane to meet my nephew who demonstrated his energy-efficient car the last 200 miles over the continental divide on five gallons of gas. Other forms of high-tech enabled Thant Thaw Kaung to participate with e-mailed proxy votes from Yangon, and Dave Richards teleconferenced from Lake Forest Park, Washington. Our largest donor, Hector Rivas, CEO of Thrift Books, was rafting an obscure river with his family, out of range by cell-phone, but not out of mind for he is heavily committed by serving on our new Finance Committee with Dave Richards and Jack Simpson.
We considered no less than 22 motions to establish Nargis Library Recovery [NLR, henceforth] as an independent non-profit business incorporated in the State of Washington. Our mission is unchanged, but our focus has intensified, now that two containers of books have arrived, been sorted and now distributed or sold to purchase more appropriate Burmese language books for libraries in Delta towns and villages. Our third container leaves Seattle August 13, with another 50,000 books.
Our intention is to help Myanmar Book Aid and Preservation Foundation [MBAPF] select and supervise a first library to remodel or rebuild to meet the need of a local library board. We want it to be an example for new and larger donors as to what our two NGOs can accomplish in collaboration with local libraries. Members of MBAPF have contacts with community library boards and are proposing which are best prepared to use our funding
NLR will support & strengthen MBAP. To serve that purpose, we will hold a second Yangon Roundtable in mid-October to enable our Finance Committee to meet MBAPF directors, who will convey its current goals and intentions. 18 months after the cyclone, what is feasible, and over what period of time? Our Finance Committee is very goal-oriented; they want to plan for what can be accomplished with a certain amount of money, over a certain period of time, by listening and learning.
NLR hopes to fund at least one rebuilding or upgrading project within the next six months. But we need to walk around & talk to the local library board of one or more libraries to better understand their challenges. We may be well-advised to focus on Yangon student needs at the outset, as the demand for scientific knowledge and world affairs is very high in this city of six million people, many of whom are migrants from the countryside.
Thinking of the demand from students for up-to-date books and periodicals, I am impressed by the student-run Ice Youth Library in downtown Yangon. They already accepted some of our books and we may help them expand their capacities, perhaps by renting more space and adding shelving, reading chairs, and more laptops. Journal subscriptions are not what NLR directors have been thinking of, we are focused on getting books into libraries destroyed by the cyclone; however, the challenge of meeting the need of more motivated independent students will be discussed at our roundtable. MBAPF directors are qualified to evaluate their country’s library priorities; NLR wants to fund their top priority.
I find relevant a wonderful book, Imagining India, by Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys. Many of his observations are true for Myanmar as well. One MBAPF director, Dr. Aung Maw, is also a highly skilled IT developer, who for years has seen Burmese youth as Nilekani sees India’s school kids. The hidden strength of Myanmar is their youth’s capacity to change. Nilekani acknowledges that India’s rural population has been a drag on economic growth; but because young brains can be changed via IT, so their society can change quite rapidly. There is hope because that is now happening across India. Our project is exactly what the doctor ordered for Myanmar, for the same reason!
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