BELLAIRE • MEMORIAL • RIVER OAKS • TANGLEWOOD • WEST UNIVERSITY

Shelving illiteracy in Houston

By Mischa Wijesekera, age 16 | May 25, 2023

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READ AND SUCCEED Mischa Wijesekera, a sophomore at Lamar, next to a Little Free Library outside of Montrose Urban Food Farm in the heart of River Oaks.

As a child, I immersed myself in every book I could get my hands on – from The Cat in the Hat to The Land of Stories. My unrelenting passion for literature often meant that I read half a dozen books within a week. As a high schooler, my passion for books has not wavered.

Fortunately, I have been lucky to have access to an endless supply of books. For me, obtaining books has been simple; my school library never failed to stock up on the latest books from popular authors, and the Houston Public Library was a quick 10-minute drive.

During the pandemic, schools faced significant budget cuts and, unfortunately, replenishing bookshelves in school libraries took a backseat. A shocking realization hit me – books, the backbone of education and literacy, are not a right but rather a privilege in thousands of underserved communities. For millions of children, obtaining books was more complicated. School libraries not only had a limited selection of books, but the closest public library could be a long 10-mile drive, not a quick 10 minutes from home.

In 2022, I sought to alleviate the unfair burden on underserved communities by launching Happi Readers, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting literacy in underserved communities through book donations. Happi Readers has collected and distributed over 2,500 books to over half a dozen schools in HISD and Alief ISD, and over two dozen Little Free Libraries.

Unfortunately, the inequality in schools and communities seeps far beyond our city. My aspirations to transform the world do not end with Houston. Happi Readers currently has a chapter in Abu Dhabi, UAE and expects to launch chapters in at least half a dozen countries by the end of 2023.

As I promote education and literacy through Happi Readers, I’ve discovered that I am the one learning the most. I learned that everyone needs to work together to put books on the shelves of underserved communities. Most of all, I learned that the goal is not to donate as many books as possible, but to transform as many lives as possible.

Editor’s note: See happireaders.com or @happireaders on Instagram.

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