Meet Mahinda Dasanayaka, a 32 year old father of two who stacks his motorbike with books every weekend and rides his mobile library across the muddy roads of Kegalle, a mountainous tea-growing region of Sri Lanka, to deliver books to underprivileged children.
Mahinda, who works for the government as a child protection officer, noticed the lack of reading materials available to children in rural villages, and decided to do something about it. In 2017 he bought a second-hand Honda motorbike, fixed a steel box to the back and launched his mobile library, “Book and Me,” with 150 books, some of his own and others donated by friends.
Today it includes 3,000 books and his program has reached over 1,500 children across twenty villages in Kegalle. Children eagerly await the sound of his motorbike each week and Mahinda often spends a few minutes chatting to them about the books they’ve read with the hope of forming reading clubs one day.
Mahinda is also expanding his library to include minority groups around Sri Lanka. The long civil war ended in 2009 but a deep divide between ethnic groups remains and Mahinda, who is part of the ethnic majority, believes that books can help build a bridge between them — because no one can get angry with books.
Despite having a wife and children to support, Mahinda funds the program himself, spending a quarter of his modest government wage on gas for his mobile library. “My only happiness is to see that children read books, and I would be delighted to hear the kids say that books helped them to change their lives, to change their perspectives and broaden their imagination. That’s my ultimate happiness.”
