Over the years, I’ve collected more than 2,000 books – each one full of promise. Yet I often struggle to find the time to read them. In Nyegina in Musoma Rural district, where I oversee a library project near a secondary school, we face a similar challenge: getting students to read beyond the syllabus.
Growing up, a bookshelf was a permanent fixture in our sitting room. It held no more than 200 books, but it likely sparked my lifelong preference for them. In college, I developed a deeper urge to explore their content – even buying titles I remembered from that childhood shelf. The irony is that while I’ve done remarkably well collecting books over the years, I haven’t matched that success when it comes to actually reading them.
A key project under the Madaraka Nyerere Library and Community Resource Center is an early reading program for primary school children. In addition to Nyegina Secondary School, which is directly across from the library, we also have Nyegina Primary A and B schools nearby. Yet, the results – measured by how often secondary school students use the library – remain discouraging. Among those who do visit, most limit themselves strictly to syllabus-based materials, rarely exploring beyond required texts. I hesitate to cite poverty as the reason some parents don’t pay the small membership fee for library access, especially when the same families regularly contribute to weddings and other community celebrations.
We must begin to see reading not as an obligation, but as a habit worth forming. Obligations come with pressure and expectations; they are tasks we must fulfill. Habits, on the other hand, are routines we choose and gradually internalize. While we may resist obligations, habits become part of our identity – sustained not by force, but by familiarity and eventually, enjoyment.
A few decades ago, far fewer interest groups competed for the public’s attention. It’s no surprise we had more time to read. Today, attention is a commodity – one that drives profit – so we’re constantly pursued and distracted by content creators, digital platforms, and endless apps.
Traditionally, elders in our communities shared stories with children around evening firesides. If this custom were revived and nurtured, it could serve as a natural gateway to literacy – first through oral storytelling, then through written versions of those tales. Strengthening this cultural practice could feed directly into reading clubs in primary schools, building the next layer of a lasting reading culture.
It may sound amusing to suggest that adults start with reading just one book a year, then two the next, and so on – but such gradual steps could turn a chore into a cherished habit. Over time, the pressure to read fades, and the joy of reading begins to take root.
Books alone will not build readers; it is the culture we create around them that will turn pages and nurture an informed society.
