After decades living and working abroad, Saeed Malik returned to his native Pakistan and wanted to do something to help rectify what he saw as a poor education system. He founded the Bright Star Mobile Library, which now serves about 2,500 children.
From a piece on NPR...
Malik says one boy told him he wanted to be a mujahed because if he died as a martyr, he, his family and friends would go to heaven. Malik says he was thoroughly disheartened.
"And I felt, in what way can we bring these kids back to the beauty of life, to the beauty of future, to be of value to fellow mankind and to themselves and to the country," he says. "And I started thinking in what way can we help the children."
Malik felt books were the way to broaden children's minds, to introduce them to a whole world of subjects, and to help build tolerance for others. But he discovered that virtually none of the public schools in and around Islamabad had libraries. A few keep a small selection of books under lock and key; others offer children religious pamphlets as reading material.
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