Every once in a rare while, when searching for one’s purpose for the next era, we can actually get a very clear glimpse of what we are supposed to do. Sometimes it makes perfect sense, ie. “Yes, I have been voicing my opinion on the internet for years now; it makes sense that I would go into politics this year” or “I eat Fruity Pebbles every day of my life, so I might as well get a job at Post Foods.” Other times, it seems to come out of nowhere, i.e. “What do you mean I’m supposed to be a snake charmer at the zoo in Dayton, Ohio? Does Dayton even have a zoo?” or “Wow, I need to go to a small West African country and start a library in a rural area with no running water or toilet paper.” Kaitlyn and I are doing one of these things.
To be fair, the decision to start a library in Ghana didn’t really come out of nowhere. We have been feeling the call of Ghana for months, but we didn’t have any idea what we were supposed to do. We knew we wanted to serve the Ghanaian people in some capacity, but like many literature students, we had no idea how to apply our passions. It’s not like we could just go and teach people how to read…Oh, wait, we totally could.
The mission is four-fold:
- Provide literacy classes for children and adults to empower them with the skills of reading and writing. Ideally, this will be done in both English and the local language.
- Create a safe space where stories can be discovered and exchanged, both orally and textually.
- Educate and empower the Ghanaian people with their own art and literature, as well as that of other African cultures through a well-stocked section of local literature and inviting African authors and performers to share their stories in this space.
- Engage in cultural preservation by recording and transcribing oral literature performed by visiting oral artists.
And before anyone throws out a “White Savior Complex” argument, this library is going to belong to the Ghanaian people. We will have the backing of a district assembly, the community, and it will be staffed by a full-time, salaried, Ghanaian librarian. We’re just there to spark the movement and provide the resources and guidance.
But movements and resources don’t come together because one or two people want them to. These things can only happen when many people catch this vision and want to be part of big change. Kaitlyn and I are doing the hard part. We have our plane tickets for February 10th and we plan to be there for a full six months of scouting, networking, building, and sweating. Hundreds of people stand to be empowered with skills and knowledge that could open up limitless job opportunities all over the world if everyone who saw this mission threw some loot at it. I hand-paint t-shirts on the side, so we’re sending everyone who donates $30 or more to this campaign a Blessed Are the Vagrant t-shirt to show off the vision they’ve caught.
Most people will skip over all of this, or they’ll make an excuse of why they need the money for something else. I get it; I’ve been there.
So it begins. Dayton, Ohio, here we come. And now whoever skipped to the bottom of this post is very, very confused.
