He loves books and he loves helping his countrymen and these two things inspired him starting a campaign to collect old books from the residents of Qatar.
Being a writer of two books, Issadeen Rilwan (pictured), a Sri Lankan expat, has launched an old-books collection campaign to help his country’s “resource-hungry” libraries of school and colleges. “So far I have collected more than 300 books from expats. The first donor hails from UK while the other is from Kerala, India,” he said. To promote his cause of helping libraries in Sri Lanka, Rilwan, an MBA, also recently started using social media platforms to tell people about the good thing he is doing.
The idea of collecting used books and sending them to school libraries of his village came to his mind during his visit to his hometown this summer. “There were only round 1,000 books in my town’s school library though the number of students was greater than the available book,” he said. He said that during his stay in his village, he also organised an essay competition among school students.
Rilwan has authored two books in Tamil language, first on child psychology and second revolving around three conflict-hit villages of northern Sri Lanka. “I take donations only in forms of books and not cash,” he said.
He said that in case residents donated Arabic books, he used to send them to Islamic seminaries in Sri Lanka. He said that there were as many as 200 Arabic colleges in Sri Lanka. “Mostly I help school library but if the books are related to higher education, they are dispatched to universities or colleges for their full academic utilisation,” he added.
When asked about the response he received after promoting his cause using social media tools, Rilwan said that in last one week he had received a dozen phone calls from various aspiring book donors. “To facilitate donors, I collect the gifted books from their doorstep. One Pakistani expat has promised me giving medical books,” he said. He said the cargo charges on books shipment from Qatar to Sri Lanka were economical which he used to bear himself.
Rilwan said that he would happily facilitate anyone wanting to establish a full-scale library at any educational institution in Sri Lanka without being involved in financial aspects of the project. He said his four books were yet not published.
