ISRC: Promoting reading culture at no cost

There are over 10,000 books, about 5,000 journals, DVDs, magazines and other educational materials - all stuffed inside the multi-purpose library of the Inwelle Study and Resource Centre (ISRC), located in the serene and secluded environment of Amorji Nike, Enugu East Local Government Area, Enugu State. The Executive Director of the Centre, Prof. Christiana Chinwe Okechukwu has the ambition to create and administer world class library system which satisfies the needs of the young people. The ISRC, established in 2005, serves as both a study and resource centre to encourage reading culture as well as human empowerment ground where youth engage in skill acquisition, according to its founder.

Prof. Okechukwu said that the acute scarcity of text books and journals in most libraries and higher institutions of learning was one of the reasons she set up the centre where up to 3,000 students, as well as university lecturers who visit the centre for research purposes, benefit from annually.

Her choice of a rural setting came from the fact that rural dwellers, particularly the girlchild and women, are mostly deprived of their educational rights.

Okechukwu, a novelist, poet and author of many books, teaches English at the Montgomery College, Rockville Maryland, USA. In spite of the fact that she is from Ogidi in Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State, she said that her research finding proved that setting up the centre at Amorji Nike community, Enugu State, would bear quick fruits and make more impact in the immediate environment.

She said the essence was to register a girl or boy (school dropout) in a remote village in Enugu, Anambra or any other place in the south-east zone of Nigeria and turn him into a fellow who gives evidence of high achievement capability in terms of academic excellence laced with good manners. And she does this without charging huge money from the numerous students. The students pay a token N500 just to renew their library ticket annually.

“So, the training is almost free,” she said.

She employed the best of teachers in subjects such as physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, etc, pays them well to drill the students academically.

“I practically work for this place. I pay my workers from America through Western Union,” she explained.

Okechukwu said she expects only “victory songs” and “hymns of success” from the beneficiaries at the end of the day.

“That is the culture I want to create; the culture where people are not allowed to rot away due to lack of care. I don’t believe that a bad person cannot be changed. And that is why I am trying to create a Little America here for them,”she said.

Allowing the students to pass through the process she calls “the booth camping” which tries to capture the