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Setting the scene
If I had been infringed by fear, I don’t think even we’d be having this conversation right now. Most people are very afraid of their dreams.
JANE
Welcome to Imaginize World where we hear from forward-thinkers, activists and sci-fi visionaries.
Today I’m with Agatha Rachael Akullu, author and reading activist based in Uganda, but whose work goes across the continent and beyond. She founded the NGO, Read Us Africa, whose goals are to encourage young Africans to read, develop writing skills and cultivate leadership qualities.
Read Us Africa works across 10 African countries and 40 universities worldwide. Agatha will share more on her vision of the future. So let’s get started.
JANE
One thing that would interest me a lot is to know how you got started in what you’re doing. I gather from comments I’ve seen on the internet that you’re young, and people often are surprised at how much you’ve done in your, shall we say, your short life. How did you get started?
When Agatha was young
So I think my journey dates back to when I was still a kid. By then we had the LRA Wars in Northern Uganda, so I didn’t attend formal schooling. But my aunt at that point, she made me learn to read, to write, draw from home. I think I was around seven years by then.
But the interesting thing is that she would actually tell me that, “You know what? When you finish reading this book, you’re going to write a review, and you’ll get a sweet.” I would read and then I write the reviews to get the sweets, yeah.
But I think with time, I realized that indeed it was not just about the sweets. Became part of me, yeah. So when I went to my high school, that is St. Mary’s Girls College Aboke, I think we had this very amazing Catholic school where it was compulsory for all of us to borrow books from the school library. It was a must for everyone.
COVID came and the bookclub started
So I would go and borrow books, and I think I would read like seven books in a week. A book per day, really. So when COVID-19 came, I was in my senior six vacation waiting to go to university. Lockdown came in and I was like at home. I was like, wait, how do I spend my time? Because by then I was working with Educate Uganda and we were no longer working. Now I remember COVID-19, how it came. Yes, people were at home. There was lockdown. You get? So I was like basically at home.
So I said, you know what? Since I’ve been mentoring people, I’ve been mentoring high school students, youth and all that, let me [inaudible 00:02 :26] start a book club, right? And we start reading, what? A book.
Actually I have the book. I think I have it here. I’m so sorry. It’s this. This was the book that was given to me by my mentor.
JANE
By Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life.
AGATHA
Yeah, Purpose-Driven Life book. So my mentor gave it to me. She said, “I want you to read this book.”
But when I read the first chapter, I remember I was like, “You know what? I don’t think I’m the only person on earth who can actually benefit with this book. You get? So let me get seven other people. We read this book together.”
So we started, we were seven of us. We started reading the book. It’s just 40 chapters. And our goal by then was that after the 40 days, because each day would be a chapter, we would actually go back to our normal lives. We would end the book club, and life would move on.
Readers from all of Africa
But we realized that we started growing. I think by the end of the book we had grown our membership from seven people, went to 11. We went to 121 people in the WhatsApp group. We had people from Ghana, we had people from Nigeria, from Zimbabwe, from Kenya, very many people. And we were like, “You know what? We need to stop reading this book.” They said, “No, I think let’s continue reading the book. Let’s continue with the book club.”
So I got another book, I don’t remember the title very well, but at least I remember this. And we read that book. I realized that, wait, we have been here and you know they are not lifting up the lockdown, like days were continuing to increase again. So we felt like we can’t just leave these people, 121 people, to just continue like that. Maybe we need to become a company because we are already like a family. We’re seeing there was impact.
That’s when we decided that no, we need to be Read Us Africa. And the name Read Us Africa, it came from the idea that Africans should read African content, write African content, and also what? Read African content. That is where the name Read Us Africa comes from. Because we realize that if you look at the curriculum that we have in Uganda, most of the books are, let’s say for Shakespeare, for Charles Dickens. But we lack our content. Like we lack our content. We lack credibility. You get? So we’re like, “Okay, I think we have something of this kind.”
So that’s how we came into existence and up to today, we have never looked back from a WhatsApp group book club.
JANE
That is really interesting. You started it on WhatsApp, then you’ve reached, it’s a huge number.
AGATHA
15 African countries.
Agatha’s Agenda 2030
That is really incredible.
I looked at your Agenda 2030 that’s published on the website. Can you talk about that a little bit? You’ve got three points in it. You’ve got empower over 8 million readers, writers and leaders, establish a publishing house, launch a bookstore.
AGATHA
Yes. Thank you so much.
Now, if you look at leaders, most leaders actually what? Readers. Good readers really make good leaders. You get? Don’t know whether we’re on the same and we realize that if at all we want to come up with good leaders, we need to, first of all, start with empowering the readers.
Because there’s a saying that if you want to hide something from an African, put it in a book, right? Because Africans don’t read. You find that we have leaders in parliament, but they sign bills without even reading it. Like people just sign things anyhow. You get?
In order for us to come up with these 8 million readers, writers and leaders, we need to, first of all, come to the grassroots and start with kids as early as the age of three years. That is why right now we have the Junior Authors Academy that actually empowers these young writers to actually write and have their books published.
Once the books are published, you realize that if I am at school and I’m 20 years of age, okay, let me say if I’m at school and I’m 10 years of age and I’ve published my book, my friends would want to read it, my family members would want to read it, and, of course, my teachers would want to read it. People would be curious to read your [inaudible 00:06 :21]. So we realized we could actually promote reading in that particular way.
And the other thing is, and I’m very, very glad to tell you that right now we already have a publishing house. And the challenge that we have in the publishing industry, especially in Uganda right now, is that, one, it is very expensive. If you want to publish a book, it is very, very costly. Very costly. And also if you want to publish your book in Uganda, you need to be someone who is old, you are known, yes, for the books to be sold. Yeah.
And also that aside, it takes a lot of time. Imagine that you have your book, you have written, and then it is taking five years to be published. You get? So when I wrote my book, my first book, I just want to show you.
JANE
Is that Arrow of Destiny?
Arrow of Destiny, Agatha’s book
Oh, yes, it is.
JANE
I tried to buy it online. I wanted to read it before our conversation today, and I couldn’t find a place to buy it.
AGATHA
This book has a challenge. That’s why you don’t see it anywhere. It’s also one of the reasons why I had to come up with a publishing industry in Read Us Africa. It was poorly published. Like the person that published it, they messed it up. You get? It wasn’t to the standards.
So I said, you know what? These are the challenges that we have in the publishing industry. I have spent so much money to print over 200 copies. I have over hundred copies here with me that I cannot even sell them because they don’t represent me well. You get?
So I felt like it is something that can bridge this gap. And also looking at the copyright infringements, you find that you have a book, but people are photocopying it. They are photocopying it and selling it cheaply. You get?
And then also we talked about the other thing of, okay, you talked about the bookstore. Yes, we are also working on up with a bookstore. Yeah, it’s something that is still under development because we realize that in Africa, yes, you can write a book, you can publish it, but the problem is buyers. So how do we make these books penetrate in the market? We have the market there, the markets are in the schools. We have the organizations that can buy these books. But how especially can we make these books get to the market?
And also, I think you said that you try to look for my book on Amazon and you couldn’t get it. You see, it’s a challenge actually in Africa. I don’t know about other countries, but in Uganda it’s also hard for our books to be on Amazon. So that’s why I also want the bookstore that can do away with some of these challenges.
And also maybe just to expand on the 8 million readers, writers and leaders, I’m also so glad to mention that at least we are coming to our mark of 1 million empowered youth.
Dead Manners book
Wow, I saw that you are co-author of another book that intrigued me by the title. It’s called Dead Manners. It’s a collection of different authors, I believe. Is that right?
AGATHA
Yes, it is. Dead Manners.
JANE
Why is the title, Dead Manners? Where does that title come from? What does it mean?
AGATHA
Dead Manners, like you’ve already mentioned, it’s a collection of 50 poets across Africa in African countries. So we came together and then we came up with this concept that, you know what, if you look at African context, we have things like corruption, we have things like immorality. We have so many things that are ongoing in our continent, you get, so how can we voice out these challenges, especially in writing? If you’re from Rwanda, what is in Rwanda that you need to put out, you know, like you need to call out, but in writing. You get it?
So that is why we call it Dead Manners. Basically saying that manners they are not wanted. They are dead. You get? There’s good manners, bad manners, but this one is dead.
JANE
Wow. I’m sure that with your energy and with your friends and your network, you’ll manage to get your writing and other people’s writing on Amazon. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Amazon is where you have to be if you want to get your work out into the world.
Inspiration from Paul Coelho
I was on Medium. I see your article, very interesting, when you talked about The Alchemist with Paul Coelho and you had three quotes, or you had a series of quotes from his book, the Alchemist, and they really struck me very strongly, and I’d like to ask you about three of them.
The first one I selected is “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” Is that the way you feel about what drives us in our lives?
AGATHA
There are people who have dreams, right? You have a dream. Maybe you want to build a house. I’m just giving this local example. You want to build a house, you want to maybe buy land. You want to maybe travel to another outside country. Maybe you want to, let’s say you just want to have a publishing company and also looking at Agenda 2030, you get?
But there are certain times when there is no hope at all. Maybe you’re trying to do this, but there are challenges left, right, and all that. But do you have the possibility, do you see that there’s a possibility of this dream really coming true, you get?
I really find that once there’s that flicker of hope, really, everything is really possible. It all begins with hope because I believe that hope is more or less something to do with what? With faith. You believe that even if you have the challenges, you have this dream, you have the challenges, everything is really possible.
People fear their dreams
That fits very well with the third quote that I chose, “People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them.” I think that’s a very deep statement.
AGATHA
Like we are very, very afraid to pursue our dreams, like our deepest dreams because we feel like maybe we just don’t deserve them. Maybe the dreams are too big or too good to be true, you get? Maybe we’re just not capable. You see, there’s this thing that people have that I am too young to do this. I don’t know where they get it. But you feel like for someone to, let’s say for example, to run a company, you need to be someone very old, right? You need to be [inaudible 00:12 :13]. You need to have a lot of money.
You know what? We started from a point where we were just a book club. Can we come up and make this now become a very big dream, like a publishing house, a company where people can earn from, you get? But if I had been infringed by fear, if we had been infringed by fear, I don’t think even we’ll be having this conversation right now.
So yeah, it is really that, most people are very afraid really of their dreams.
JANE
I think you’re absolutely right.
I have some questions I wanted to ask you about your view of the future. I can guess the answer, but I’m going to ask you anyway.
Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future, either short-term or long-term? How do you feel about it?
How do you see the future?
I’m very optimistic about the future. That is the truth. I think you are right. You could already guess it. I’m very, very optimistic about the future.
Can you believe that today is actually our future? I don’t know whether you get the point. Because yesterday was 29th, today is the 30th. We’re already in the future. Most people think that the future is 10 years from now, but the future is now.
Like I have created that path where I live in the future. So if I am envisioning a future where I want 8 million readers by 2030, I need to start living in it now. I don’t need to wait for it to come. You get? So, yeah, I’m very optimistic that even regardless of the challenges that we are facing, of course, it is quite a slippery business. It’s quite a slippery industry. But I am very, very optimistic. The fact that we have existed for five years without dying, I think there is more to this really. Yeah.
JANE
Well, that sort of goes on to my next question, which is, what is the one thing that gives you the most hope about the future?
AGATHA
One thing that gives me the most hope about the future, I am a believer. Yeah, that is it, really. I am really a very, very pious believer and lover of God.
And the one thing that really makes me believe in the future is that the fact that things just work out from childhood, from, I don’t know how long, up to now really, really, really surely. That is the one thing.
JANE
Now this, I don’t know what your answer’s going to be, this next question, I generally have no idea. The question is, if there were one thing that you could change about humanity, about the world?
What would you change in humanity?
If there was one thing that I could change about humanity, to be sincere, it would be the fact that we are not… Okay, if you look at humanity right now, people always ask, “What can JANE do about the situation?” Not “What can I do about the situation?” You get? We always think about others being the solution, but not us, you get? If there is a fire outbreak in my neighboring community, what can I do about it even before the police comes? Am I going to just wait for the police to come and put on the fire brigade and all that? Or am I going to do something about it, you get?
So the one thing that I really wish I could change about humanity is having that empathy and having it in our hearts that we should really be the change that we want to see. Not always waiting for someone to come and create that change. That regardless of how small that help could be, that aid could be, let’s put in the efforts.
I feel like we have so many things ongoing, but we don’t care about it, like we don’t care, like most people don’t care about that, you get? We’re always thinking outside, “What can someone do for me?” Not, “What can I do for them?” Yeah, that is it really for me.
JANE
Agatha, I really enjoyed our conversation. Your work is truly inspiring.
AGATHA
Thank you.
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