The 1traveler1book movement urges travelers to share the gift of reading by donating their books at their destinations. (Photo courtesy of TripTrus)
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.
This sentiment, often attributed to Christian philosopher St. Augustine, serves as both a slogan and inspiration for trotting the globe.
“Travel is becoming a trend [for Indonesians],” tourism entrepreneur Brahmantya Sakti noted.
But too few travelers realize how many hidden pages there are within their home country. Sakti capitalized on this oversight, promoting trip packages to more than 300 alternative domestic travel destinations, through his tourism startup TripTrus.
Sakti established TripTrus as an online leisure market in 2011 with three friends, Della Walasary, Donna Iwan Setiawan and Hendra Hoedojo. Their platform is a marketplace where travel organizers and travelers can come together. Sakti said they specifically wanted to feature organizers who offer unique itineraries, which are often a challenge for tourists to find on their own.
Despite the high tourism potential of a country with such incredible diversity, it’s often described as hundreds of countries in one — many Indonesian tourism spots remain underdeveloped because the destinations themselves are underdeveloped.
The poverty of potential travel “pages” in Papua through the Thousand Islands, upon Javanese Mountains such as Semeru, Bromo, and Kidul, and all the way out to West Kalimatan and Southern Sulawesi relates to a lower rate in literacy. A large factor of the illiteracy problem is limited access to books.
“The more I travel, the more I see how difficult it is to get books in Indonesia,” Sakti said. Many Indonesian villages and small cities aren’t only lacking in proper bookstores — Sakti says libraries can also be a rarity. Even if there is a bookstore or a library in the area, it is often too far for children to reach on their own.
Regular reading is essential for maintaining literacy, and whereas the Ministry of Education and Culture has made strides toward the literacy goals outlined in Unesco’s global Education for All targets, the national population census of 2010 revealed that 5.02 percent of the population was still illiterate at the time.
An illustration of this problem was seen by a group of TripTrus backpackers from Jakarta, who came across children who didn’t spend any time reading, because they didn’t have any books. They therefore decided to leave their own books with the children.
Sakti is encouraging other travelers to follow suit through his program, 1Traveler1book. He refers to the program as a social movement, calling upon all travelers, trip organizers, even writers and publishers to donate books in their recreational trips.
Travelers should try to carry at least one book at all times, which they can then pass on to children of school age.
“We want to see travelers as couriers of books all over the country,” Sakti said.
TripTrus launched the website side of the movement on May 17, Indonesia’s National Book Day. 1traveler1book.com features a collection of stories and pictures of travelers who have given away their books while exploring the country. Sakti is also encouraging people to use the hashtag #1traveler1book to share their stories.
Sakti and his friends have been spreading the words through mailing lists, traveler gatherings and media partners, in addition to social media.
Non-travelers are also welcome to participate by helping get the word out there, publishing stories, donating books or even by providing a drop box. Drop boxes have been made available so far in Jakarta, Surabaya, Malang, and Makassar.
Sakti believes that this program will furthermore urge people to travel, getting travelers of a productive age to see more of their homeland.
He is also working with travel organizers to get their participants join the 1Traveler1Book movement.
“Such collaborations should be possible and doable,” he said. “The reactions of the children that we put on the website will be a priceless experience.”
The 1traveler1book program will run until the next National Book Day in 2015. TripTrus hopes to have given away a
minimum of 100 books by then.
minimum of 100 books by then.
“There are more than 42 million students in Indonesia, and we only have 700 bookstores and fewer than 3,700 libraries,” Sakti said. “I think we need to work and travel harder to spread more books.”
By Lisa Siregar on 12:05 pm Jun 15, 2014
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