Welcome

In 2018, my 94 year-old great-grandmother Clarita passed away in her home in Bacnotan. As the only member of the community to have traveled outside the country, she brought back a sense of opportunity and an abundance of knowledge. An African proverb maintains that “when an Elder dies, a library burns to the ground,” and the loss of my great-grandmother means that countless stories have been lost. I visited Bacnotan in 2018 to celebrate the life and legacy of my great grandmother. The community was robust, tight-knit, and hardworking. Everytime we stepped out of the house, a group of shoe-less children would swarm us asking questions like “where have you traveled,” and “what’s your life like?” These curious kids were such a light in an otherwise dark time, and we grew to love them very much. In traveling around my great-grandmother’s home town, I was struck by the extreme poverty that surrounded us. Children wore decades old clothes and adults looked run-down at every hour of the day. During my time in Bacnotan, I met a bubbly little girl Gemma, who lit up at the opportunity to read a Harry Potter book I had brought with me. After discovering all the amazing children, who didn't have access to a community library, I decided that I needed to step up. By 2021, I had come up with the idea for the International Library Initiative, and have been dedicated to providing literature to the community of Bacnotan since.