Student's "Books for the Mountains" campaign reaches 10,000 books

When 21-year-old university student Do Minh Anh visited a primary school in a mountain district of Ha Giang last summer, she was shocked by what she saw in its library: two shelves, a few old textbooks and almost no storybooks. Some of the children had never owned a book of their own. That trip gave her the idea for "Books for the Mountains", a campaign to collect books for children in remote areas.

Anh started by asking her classmates to bring one book each. Within a week, the corner of her dormitory room was full. She then created a page on social media, where she posted photos of the children and short videos of them reading. Senior students from her university joined first, followed by office workers and retired teachers. Not everyone was enthusiastic. Some people told her that children in the mountains needed food and warm clothes more than books, and a few were simply indifferent. "I understood their point," Anh says, "but I believe a good book can change how a child sees the world."

Volunteers sort the donated books by age and check that they are in good condition. Damaged books are repaired, and books that are not suitable for children are passed on to community libraries for adults. Each school that receives books also gets a set of shelves made by a group of volunteer carpenters.

Since it began, the campaign has collected more than 10,000 books and delivered them to fourteen schools. Anh hopes to reach 20,000 books by the end of next year. A third of the books are new, bought with small donations; the rest are second-hand.

The project has also changed the volunteers. Nguyen Duc Long, a bank employee who drives the books to the mountains every month, says the trips have taught him patience. "The roads are terrible, and sometimes we are stuck for hours," he laughs. "But when the children run out to meet the truck, you forget all about it."

For Anh, the goal is bigger than a number. "I don't want people to think of this as charity," she says. "I want every child to feel that reading is a normal part of life, not a gift that arrives once a year."