Buea(Fako) — Pan-Africanist and play-right, Nwalimu George Ngwane, has urged teenage students to cultivate their reading zeal for self-empowerment.

George Ngwane was speaking recently at the Buea Multi-purpose Centre for Youth Development (MCYD) while launching the mobile library project named "books-on-wheels"

During the exercise, George Ngwane, Chairman of the National Book Development Council (NBDC), distributed books to some 50 students of MCYD after drilling them on general knowledge quizzes. He explained that his project was actually to encourage students to win books for their schools and communities. He told the audience that the NBDC intended to support mini-libraries for various communities and institutions. As such, the scheme intends to encourage reading to avert illiteracy. The reading culture will be achieved through setting up village libraries and donating books to women and youth empowerment centres in the rural areas of the South West Province, Ngwane explained.

The National Book Development Council has set out in its recent move to increase literacy access for rural youths with emphasis on the girl child. Through their programme of "Empowering Disadvantaged Book Sectors in the South West Province of Cameroon," the NBDC has confirmed its ambitious plan to carry out a bi-annual mobile reading campaign and the distribution of low cost books to key village libraries and Youth/ Women Empowerment centres.

Breaking away from the reading apathy apparently gripping youths and adults alike can only be a welcome endeavour. A German historian and Journalist of the late 18th Century wrote that "foolish is the man who never reads " Other writers have confirmed that reading informs, builds character and taste. Equally, the yearning for knowledge and empowerment can only be quenched through reading. Ngwane's caravan on a mission to satisfy litteracy needs was set for the Limbe neighbouring town of Idenau last weekend.