Inventive Indonesians are coming up with new ways to get scarce reading materials into the hands of youngsters

With a great heave, a young man pushes the ancient, three-wheeled rickshaw down a ramp and it splutters to a start. The driver, Sutino “Kinong” Hadi, laughs as he putters his tiny Bemo in a loop outside a preschool in Tanah Abang, in central Jakarta. It’s all the signal the children need; around 20 flood out to envelope the car, pulling at hangings, clambering into the front seat. It’s an exciting time: their library has arrived.

Kinong is one of thousands of Indonesians who have opened their own library in their own communities. Estimates suggest there are thousands of such libraries in Indonesia, started by ordinary people with great initiative to address the lack of books in their area and funded by occasional donations.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kinong has runs his Bemo mobile library since 2013 and says he has to be careful not to let too many children to take books home. Photograph: Sian Cain/The Guardian

There is the Perahu Pustaka, a library boat that sails around West Sulawesi. There are libraries on the back of vegetable carts, shelves lugged around by horses in Serang and in West Papua. Across Banten, a 200-strong motorbike gang called the Komunitas Motor Literasi (Moli), brings books to homes from a box attached to their vehicles, delivered with the ease of a takeaway.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Andri Gunawan’s motorcycle is one of 200 bikes in the Komunitas Motor Literasi (Moli). Photograph: Sian Cain/The Guardian

All of them are run by inventive, ambitious, ordinary people much like Kinong, 59, who left school before he turned 10. Since 2013, he has parked his Bemo near schools in Tanah Abang, and let kids settle in to enjoy a book. He only sometimes allows them to take it home, with a stern promise to return it. “I’ve lost a lot of books that way,” he laughs.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Andri Gunawan heads the Moli motorcycle literacy initiative Photograph: Sian Cain/The Guardian

With 17,000 islands and a geography that almost spans the distance from London to Tehran, Indonesia has struggled to promote reading across the country. For every 100 students, just one quarter leave school meeting minimum standards of literacy and numeracy. Only 30% of villages have a library; some of the smallest only stock copies of the Quran. The government has attempted several initiatives, including a rule that children must read a book that isn’t a textbook at school for 15 minutes each morning; and on the 17th day of each month, individuals can post books, wherever they want in the country, for free.

But the persistent myth that Indonesians aren’t interested in reading still pervades; last September, Jakarta governor, Anies Baswedan, told the Jakarta Post: “We are challenged to improve our reading interest, particularly in an era where people are far more interested in reading WhatsApp [chats] than in reading books … People nowadays prefer to skim rather than read.”

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But civilians argue that interest isn’t the problem, its the lack of infrastructure. “Reading appetite isn’t low in Indonesia, its just hard to get books,” says Laura Prinsloo, a publisher and chairperson of Indonesia’s national book committee, citing the millions now posting books on the 17th. “In Indonesia, if the government fails, the public does something – then they step up. A lot of the people operating these libraries don’t have an education, which makes it hard in a place where it’s about who you know. So if you don’t know anyone, you just do it yourself.”

Like Andri Gunawan, a wiry young man who heads up the Komunitas Motor Literasi. He never had a library in any of his schools and only became a voracious reader as an adult. “Contrary to what a lot of people say, it’s not that there is no interest in reading, it is that there are no books,” he says. “We had to start there.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kiswanti, who runs the Warabal school and library in Parung, south of Jakarta used to fast for 10 days a month to save enough money for books. Photograph: Sian Cain/The Guardian

Or Kiswanti, a 52-year-old woman who started out delivering books door-to-door for free on her bicycle. Now, her library and school Warabal, found in Parung, Java, is 21 years old and houses 15,000 books, looked after by 25 volunteers for 1,700 members.

Kiswanti, who prefers to use just the one name, only received a few years of elementary education and decades on, still cries at the memory of having to spy on lessons in a neighbouring school through slits in the bamboo wall. “My father apologised as he couldn’t send me on to further education,” she says. “But he told me, if I wanted to be smarter, I had to read – and if I did, I could achieve whatever dream I had.”

Her dream was opening her own library – and she pursued it relentlessly. Her wages from shucking peanuts and harvesting rice went towards books. When she got a job as a domestic helper in Jakarta, she asked to be paid in books. When her husband proposed in 1987, she had rules – including the freedom to buy any books she wanted.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kiswanti’s library and Warabal school have now been operating for 21 years, with the help of 25 volunteers. Photograph: Sian Cain/The Guardian

When Kiswanti opened Warabal in 1997, she even began fasting 10 days each month to buy more. “I needed 3,000 rupiah (16p) to eat a day,” she explains. “If I didn’t eat, I can save 30,000 (£1.66) in 10 days – so I could take our best students by taking them to bookshops and buy them any book they want.”

Health problems eventually stopped her from continuing this practice, but her resolve remains the same. “Reading transports me and introduces me to new worlds – I want to give children that.”

Though they are applauded by the Indonesian government, community library owners like Andri, Kiswanti and Kinong all rely on donations from the public. Even President Joko Widodo has donated books to Kinong, who keeps a small photo of them shaking hands taped in pride of place on his Bemo.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Kinong’ kept up his mobile library even after his Bemo rickshaw was banned from being on the roads. Photograph: Sian Cain/The Guardian

Not even Bemos being banned from the road last year has stopped Kinong’s resolve, though it ended his 40-year career as a taxi driver. He now sells drinks on the side of the road, and can only drive this library around the neighbourhood once or twice a week. “My life situation is a bit unstable right now,” he says. “If I could earn more, my family would be more stable and I could do this more. I just want children to read more than I did.”

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