Nigeria’s first mobile library hits the road

Funmi Ilori once had a dream about creating the biggest library in Africa. Now she drives vans packed with books to poor areas of Lagos to help children discover a love of reading.

“Readers are what?” she asks about 15 youngsters, sitting on little plastic stools in a classroom in a small converted lorry.
“Leaders!” they shout back in unison.
One of Ilori’s iRead Mobile Library vans recently stopped at the Bethel primary school in the working class district of Ifako, in the heart of megacity Lagos.
Inside the school compound, slides and seesaws rust in the humid air. The head teacher, Ruth Aderibigbe, said her 200 or so pupils only have textbooks at their disposal.
“Books cost a lot of money,” she said.
When iRead turned up at the school two years ago with its wide selection of books, from toddlers’ colouring books to children’s novels, plus a few for adults, she welcomed it in with open arms.
“The children involved in the programme now speak and spell better in English,” she said.