Our Used Books for Pakistani Students
By Perwaiz Ahmad
Fullerton, CA
Those of us who came to the United States as students in the 1960's, 70's and 80's had to endure enormous hardships to survive and pay for our education. We faced numerous challenges, worked menial jobs (nothing wrong with that) to pay for room, board, tuition, fees and books. Most of us successfully overcame the formidable challenges and after graduation went on to work as professionals in engineering, computer science, business, etc. We all have books from our college years which we hardly use because at work we use reference books or handbooks made available by our employers. Those text books are either rotting on shelves at home collecting dust or are packed in cartons (out of sight, out of mind) and stored away in garages or attics.
Although scores of years have gone by we still have vivid memories of our homeland when there used to be a waiting list to borrow text books for a week from the library. We all wish things have improved over the last few decades back home but unfortunately that is not so; rather, our country has been on a downward spiral for decades with no change in sight in the near future.
Over the year, in view of demographic changes and growth, the student population has multiplied taking a toll on the basic infrastructure: one such item of pressing necessity is books. So far our present government has done little to alleviate the problems faced by our youth; in fact, according to Dr Ata ur Rahman (former minister) the government has stifled the facilities for higher education.
The socio-political and economic situation has been fragile for so long that many ambitious and able students in our home country have turned away from pursuing higher education because of lack of text books, mainly owing to two reasons: a) affordability and b) availability. Therefore, it is our moral and religious obligation to help those young minds in any way possible and one such way is by sending the books we don’t use so they have one less thing to worry about.
Text books don't go out of fashion because the basic principles - be it engineering, science or accounting - remain the same as was the case before and during our times or in current days. Borrowing a slogan from NAACP , "A mind is a terrible thing to waste", it is my earnest desire to invite like-minded people (just a few) in this endeavor of collecting text books in a central location and shipping them to Pakistan so the aspiring students can benefit from them and thus become part of a progressive society.
If we really feel the pain our students go through during their education in Pakistan we have to do something to help them in the first twenty-three years of life because this is the time when they have the drive and dynamism to advance.
There may be many hurdles and obstacles in establishing a book bank (library) in Pakistan, such as freight cost, within USA, packaging and shipment to Pakistan, receiving, storage, distribution and managing the Book Bank but everything is possible if intentions are sincere. The logistics can be worked out once we set our goals to help the young generation. Let’s give this idea a chance. I would like to invite some like-minded people to come together and bring this noble project to fruition.
My contact info: email: psa9009@gmail.com; phone number is (949) 278 -9009.
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