Working together towards prosperity

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the meeting of the NCLA - Nepal Community Libraries Association. Community library leaders from all over Nepal met at the World Trade Center in Kathmandu.

READ Nepal, the organization where I am working this summer, has built 45 libraries since its foundation in 1991. These libraries are built in partnership with the communities and they are located in the 5 different development regions of Nepal.

As I am learning from visiting some of them and reading about their history, these libraries are very diverse both regarding the size of the community as well as its proximity to other neighbooring communities. Some libraries are right along major highways while to reach others one needs to hike in the mountains for five days. In some ways they face very different challenges.

But they have more in common than might, at first, meet the eye. They all reflect the community commitment to education and development and they all became important institutions in their communities. In size, they sometimes look small (specially compared to the huge library system we have in the US) but their potential for promoting development in Nepal's striving society is immense!

An important step in moving forward towards realizing this potential is the creation of the NCLA. Together these libraries can find better solutions to their problems, learn from each other success and leverage their position in dealing with Nepali government, vendors and other non governmental associations.

I was very happy to be part of this important meeting and happier that between their nepali english, my little Nepali knowledge and lots of body language, I could understand more of what was going on than at first I expected. It was a very friendly, enjoyabel and serious meeting.

The future of this organization is very bright and I am looking forward to the great things yet to come from it!