>> Speaker 1: From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. ^F00:00:04 ^M00:00:17 >> Thach Quang Nguyen: Good morning everybody. Thank -- thank LOC for giving -- giving me time to be here to learn from all of you and to have something from our -- ^M00:00:31 from me to say to all of you. When I was 17 years old, I want to be -- I wanted to be a novelist. So at that time, I set up my life to our plight to ask capital for writing. And two years in the society I saw lots of bad things. So I have found other way to become a university student. And when I was 21, I set my life target to become Prime Minister to change Vietnam. But after one year, after a shock, when I find a way to -- ^M00:01:07 ^M00:01:10 to help mentor weak woman to take her home, but I saw problem with lots of people, but only one student help me. So I've got shock. After taking her home, I decided to become a library -- a library revolutionary to change Vietnam. So here is -- I want to show what I have been doing. ^F00:01:33 ^M00:01:39 When I -- when I decided to become library revolutionary, I make lots of interview and to see that, in Vietnam, rural children do not -- did not have book for reading. And school libraries, very poor, poorly operational. So that why we have this number. Now, there's my inter -- my surveys. And the other is from the government. ^M00:02:14 Here is a very aftermath of our society. ^M00:02:20 So, ^M00:02:25 I took 10 years to be [Inaudible] for revolution with my own money. And then -- then I develop a civil library system library system, which, the first one is a Clan library. We base on clan -- a big family in Vietnam. Have same ancestor to build library. And there are lots of clan in Vietnam. And I make a model after they see it on news on TV. ^M00:02:54 And very second and very successful model is the fund -- parent-funded library. We now in Vietnam, most -- more than 80% of the people come from rural area and they are farmer. And they have very low income. Only 50 or 100 U.S. dollar per month per person. So I use the most desired model that the low income parent can contribute only two or three U.S. dollar per year to start the library. And then their children can read about more than 50 books. ^M00:03:29 Only one -- no time for reading. But they get together and some more money and they make big money to do a big library in the classroom. And this model becomes very [Inaudible] in Vietnam. Lots of social member. Children can be with and parent be with. ^M00:03:54 And [Inaudible] one parish library we have for about, in Vietnam, have about 7 million cities and these are religious follower. So we build that structure to build library. So, in coming years, it's about -- I predict about 1 million religious children have a book because every case the Catholic system to do that. ^M00:04:24 And I also built back-front military officer library. Because in newer area, the military officer and police and [Inaudible] teacher have a good, stable income. So we develop this so that many family, they build library for your children and villager to read it. ^M00:04:46 Here, achievements. I think now it is easy -- not easy to count the number of library increase daily. And ^M00:04:59 now more than 20,000 library already built. And this number is increasing very fast -- rapidly. And about 300,000 Vietnamese and oversee Vietnamese engaged in building and many people from America contribute money to build it. And now, more than 1 million rural readers have benefit from my -- our system. And here is a very big number for me. Number of book borrowed by rural student has increased from zero to 12.5 books per year to 10 to 30 per year. Yeah. ^M00:05:38 Because we, when the library in the classroom, they're reading. Very easy for them to read and to access it. And in achievements, you know, many parent in rural area are now, they're reading books for their children. That is never before. Two libraries model include in the government system. Minister of Education and Minister of Culture already got two models into their system. So we have NGO and UNESCO cooperate in 2009 and last year. ^M00:06:18 And now we are develop STEM education. It's an American model so it -- we make recycle STEM in rural area. [Laughter] Yeah. ^M00:06:29 Here is the [Inaudible] Deputy Prime Minister work with me and we will develop the system faster and faster. ^M00:06:37 ^M00:06:41 Ongoing work. We are building a master plan to attract 10 million children to use lucky money to build library. And yearly about 50 million U.S. dollar for [Inaudible] for the children in the New Year [Inaudible] in Vietnam. And we are -- we are -- I am trying to learn the reading encouragement strategies from U.S. organizations for adapting and applying in Vietnam. And I will also developing reading encouragement models to apply both in college -- in school and in the community. ^M00:07:18 So it's my want -- my desire -- my ambition again. In 2015, I go after about 4 million first step to raise awareness for the Vietnamese people and to advocate the policy for Vietnam. And now it is already success -- success. So I want to use my footsteps to power footsteps to walk around the worlds to make a kind of global campaign for reinforcing right to read for the world children. So I am very happy today to say [Inaudible] from India here. ^M00:08:01 So I want to organize the country to raise fund for local library organizations like Pratham Book classroom. Desire to devote -- I desire to devote my -- the rest of my life to the world children. You see after 2 million children in India cannot own a book because of the cost is a figure of Pratham Book. ^M00:08:23 So I hope that -- I have only one, only one eye. Blind already. So I hope that before the remain blind, I have a chance to walk around the world to raise problem about reading -- about lack of reading for the children, lack of move forward children, and I hope that we all here shake hands to make a change in the international scope to have all children have a book to read. As you know, you do not go ^M00:08:57 [Inaudible] ^M00:09:05 about seven -- more than 750 million children, people in the world, illiterate. So we -- so shake hands to keep it down. All right? So it is starting from building library for the children. So I hope that next year in 2008 the Pratham Book and I, we can shake hands together. I can walk in your country about 1 million -- no -- 1,000 kilometer from [Inaudible] to raise and to call in the Indian people to shake hands to replicate some of those. Some of those very excellent. So, thank you again. ^M00:09:52 >> Speaker 1: This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at www.loc.gov.