Good news for all those bookworms in Maluku! An influx of foreign language books in the past few weeks should provide plenty of reading material for those who like to read.

The first shipment of books, donated by various Moluccans in the UK, arrived in September when 78 books (a mix of English, German and Dutch) were greatly accepted by the Language and Study Centre at Pattimura University in Ambon. We received a nice Thank You letter from the university - see attachment.

Another batch took a lot longer and after an extremely long journey around 200 English language books, again donated by Moluccans in the UK, finally arrived in Maluku. They were shipped out of the UK at the end of January 2021, but due to problems we encountered with the shipping agent, took nearly ten months to reach its final destination. These too have now arrived at the Unpatti Language and Study Centre. If only these books could tell their own story!

Coincidentally these books were on the same shipment as the nine boxes of books, kindly donated to Bahasa Basudara by KPG Gramedia - a well-known publishing house in Jakarta.  

Reza and Hilary Syaranamual from our partner Ini Beta, and whose house was used as a temporary ’book distribution centre’, had gone through all these boxes last weekend. Together with his team of football volunteers they went through the boxes containing English, French and Indonesian literature and came to a total count of 678 books. These books will be divided between the Language Development Centre at Islamic State Institute in Ambon (IAIN), Unpatti Language Centre and other educational organisations in Maluku.

Still making its way to Maluku from Holland are the 55 books that have been generously donated by Bahasa Basudara tutor Vivienne Philipus. We’re hopeful that her donation of mainly English and some Dutch language books, will arrive any time soon.

To everyone who has been involved with these book donations, whether you donated your favourite books, involved with the distribution, or the counting and sorting at Reza’s house – a massive THANK YOU! Thanks to these donations, we can continue to spread the Word and can already look back at a successful and productive Year of Literacy.