Motorbike Book Club helps young Vietnamese readers

Thursday, February 23, 2017
Motorbike Book Club helps young Vietnamese readers

Kiwi artists and performers are coming together in Auckland tomorrow night to help raise awareness and funds for a mobile literacy project delivering books by motorbike to children living in some of Vietnam’s poorest rural villages.

The K’ Road gig featuring musicians and poets aims to raise funds for the Motorbike Book Club set up by two Kiwi sisters who want to make a difference to the lives of children with no access to books.

The project is the brainchild of Hayley Morrison, a 24-year-old student working towards a Master of International Development by distance learning through Massey University, and her older sister, Tamra. The idea for a charitable trust came about after Hayley Morrison visited Vietnam’s Thua Thien-Hue province on the north central coast region two years ago with Tamra, who 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 some of the 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?”

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.

Hairy Maclary 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 Hairy Maclary stories and even Winnie the Pooh, 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.

She hopes supporters will see the fundraising event as a way to express their own passion for empowering disadvantaged children through literacy.

Friday’s fundraising event is at Holm, 295 Karangahape Road at 7:30pm. Performers are local Kiwi artists folk singer-songwriters Holly Arrowsmith and Alicia Beauchamp, and poet Dietrich Soakai.

For more information, check out www.motorbikebookclub.org and on Facebook.

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