One day, Yacht Aid Global, a charitable organization that utilizes the luxury yacht fleet to help communities in need, contacted us saying that they wanted to support our project in Flores. Wow, of course we’re very thrilled!

They knew that Taman Bacaan Pelangi were focusing on providing story books for children who live in remote areas of Flores. Without our knowing, they have collected 54 boxes of books for us! Wow!!! However, later we found out that those books were all in English! Oooppssiee!

English books can be very useful for children, of course. But since the kids in the villages are not familiar with English yet, it will be wiser to approach them with Indonesian books. Something that they can chew right away, considering that our main objective is to encourage and nurture their interest in reading.

So, when we said that it would be better that all the books were in Indonesian language, they were very surprised. What are we going to do with all these 54 boxes of books? I asked them. Good question, indeed.

People say, when there’s a will, there’s a way. It is so true. A few months later, they contacted us again saying that they have managed to sell those books in numerous occasions! Whoaaaa!!! Well done! What a great effort they’ve put themselves into! Can you imagine all the hassle having to sell all those books in different cities and different festivals/bazaars/book fairs? We were speechless and amazed at the same time. It really shows the quality of the people behind all these efforts. Not only for the hard work, but also for the good heart they have inside.

Some people from the organization finally made a trip from New Zealand to Flores. Indo Yacht Support helped them to coordinate with us for the handover of the donation. They gave us 500 USD in cash plus more than 150 story books in English. Perfect. Now we can buy Indonesian story books from the fund donation and mix them with the English story books from them! Hurrayyyy!!!
We distributed the English books to our reading gardens in Flores. Also, we gave 54 books to our partner, Taman Bacaan Sano Nggoang since we believed that it was good to share what we have to others. Vinsen Surma, the founder of Taman Bacaan Sano Nggoang, was so happy to choose the books that were suitable for his reading garden’s readers. He got all excited (and us, too!) and didn’t realize that it was almost 11pm when he was done choosing the books!

Taman Bacaan Pelangi (Rainbow Reading Gardens) thanked Yacht Aid Global and Indo Yacht Support for their contribution in supporting the establishment of small libraries for the kids in West Flores. Thank you for the books, the fund donation, the time, the energy and all the efforts spent in supporting us. Together, we can make a difference!