Nigeria, April 30 -- MAYEIN's* Dream, Nigeria's Future

What better way to begin this brief address than to ask Edem Ossai, MAYEIN's founder herself, to take us by the hand and lead us through the dream that mothered the actualisation of today's event and its predecessors, since the birthing of this tremendously valuable initiative some 14 years ago? Here, in her own words, is a brief history of how the MAYEIN dream was born and how her call to action was prompted by an irresistible resolve:

I was troubled by the alarming number of children hawking goods on the streets of Ibadan during school hours. I believed that mobile libraries and small physical libraries in under-resourced neighbourhoods would be an effective way to provide reading...