More Than a Library

We are starting a library in Ghana. That’s what we thought when we launched this crazy crowd-funding campaign and began researching how best to prove our sanity to our families. Establishing anything in another country is audacious—far from the transient backpacking forays I’m used to—but apparently it wasn’t big enough.

Kaitlyn and I sat down with an old family friend of mine named Chris Green, who is the president of a non-profit called Vision for the Children International. We told him about how we wanted to start our own non-profit for a library in Ghana to share books and teach literacy. He shared a lot of his own wisdom from the past few years in international NGOs, but the thing that stuck out the most for both of us was this: focus on the “why” and people will come.

This is, of course, not the first time I had heard this—I’ve even said it a lot! But when you’re starting something on your own, it’s easy enough to get caught up in the “what” and “how” of it all. But there was more heart to this idea than anything we had ever undertaken, so we decided we needed to take some time between our five jobs and iron out really WHY we were going to Ghana. Over several fragmented conversations, we worked out some really incredible stuff. We filled four notebook pages of ideas that were so full of heart that they were heavy to hold. In fact, it was TOO much good stuff, and Kaitlyn sighed at one point: “You know, we have to fit this all into one mission statement.”

But here’s what we discovered: this is more than a library. We operate from two clear concepts:

Storytelling –> Imagination –> Innovation

The first is that storytelling unlocks imagination, which unlocks innovation. We picture the spaces between these ideas as doors. We cannot boot down these doors, or drag people through them, but we can unlock them and tell them the lands beyond are theirs to explore. When people hear stories, they have the ability to imagine and think creatively. When they begin to imagine, they have the ability to innovate creative and unique solutions to whatever problems they face in their lives. This is important because of concept number 2.

Ghanaian plights are resolved by Ghanaian people with Ghanaian solutions.

We’ve made it clear that we are not saviors. We are keymakers, unlocking doors with resources for people who never thought the road to innovation was one they could travel. Ghanaian problems are not ours to solve, and as Americans we wouldn’t even know where to begin. The potential for a country’s prosperity lies within its people—they just need to find doors that aren’t locked.

Accepting these two core concepts, we are creating literary centers, with the following initiatives:

1. Empowerment through literacy education. One of the revelatory changes we’re implementing is that English literacy courses are not enough. If Ghanaian plights are really resolved by Ghanaian people with Ghanaian solutions, those solutions will often be written in a Ghanaian language. Thus, we want to empower people in their own language. We are now in the market for a competent teacher of an indigenous Ghanaian language in the locale we choose to establish within. Students will learn how to read, write, and master their own language.A message painted on the wall of a schoolhouse in Nzulezo.
2. Cultural Appreciation through a library of primarily African literature. In the West, we are not raised to believe that the art of another civilization is the standard by which all art should be judged. We Americans are not told, “If it doesn’t emulate Chinese art, it’s worthless!” But these are lessons that are taught to postcolonial cultures, who are told that their literature will never measure up to American or British literature because “that’s literature.” African literature is every bit the literature that Americans and Brits can conjure up, and they can appreciate that and be proud of it. We will also invite oral artists from around the country to come and perform, since Ghana has its own proud tradition of oral poetry.
3. Cultural Revival. Once people are empowered to read and write and they have an appreciation for their local literature, then the doors are unlocked to create. We will have writing classes where students can hone their writing skills—either fiction or non-fiction, in English or an indigenous language. They will be guided through the processes of proofreading, editing, and revising a final draft of their written work, which we will then help to publish so that the rest of the world can hear the voices of people who were once hidden behind those locked doors. The possibilities for this are endless.

So yeah, it’s more than a library. We can envision entire languages being enriched and expanded by budding authors writing the narratives of their own cultures. Whole people groups might reclaim traditions, offer prize-winning authors, and infiltrate the international scene. The choices will be theirs; the keys will be there.

With our ambitious new mission, we are unveiling our non-profit organization: Untold International. This is an organization dedicated to the untold stories hidden within once-oppressed cultures all over the world, and the untold results of them being heard.

It’s happening, and we’re just a handful of miracles away from all this being realized. If this mission resonates with you, please donate to the cause at our website or our crowd-funding campaign. This will likely become our life’s work; we believe that much in these untold stories.