TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Rahmat Djudju Djunaedi (68), a resident of Gununghejo village, Darangdan district, Purwakarta, West Java, is now spending the rest of his life as a volunteer who runs a mobile library.
From 1998 to 2008, Rahmat, a thin and tall man, began his activity as a volunteer for a mobile library.
He did that every Sunday.
"Initially, I did it for fun to spend my weekend,” he said to Tempo on Friday (5/8).
He begins moving around with his mobile library from 7 am until 5 pm.
His clients are mostly school children, ranging from elementary school students, junior high school student, high school students and even some of them are university students and civil servants.
"They are scattered in 10 villages around where I live," he said.
The villages he usually visits are Neglasari, Linggasari, Sadarkarya, Palm, Darangdan, Depok and Legokwaru visits.
In the meantime, books that he usually keeps in his collection are books on There agriculture, fisheries, politics, family, religion, health, sports, biographies and magazines, all of them are still in good condition.
"The first time I did this activity, I received Tempo magazines as the contributions," he said.
To add its library collection, Rahmat often writes open letters in a number of newspapers and magazines published Bandung and Jakarta to ask for book donations.
"Thank God, the response has been very positive. I could finally receive book donations through the post office every day," he said.
As a result, Rahmat now has a collection of 14,876 books and magazines.
His loyal readers have also continued to increase and as of now, the number has reached 560 readers in each village, there are on average two reading groups.
Nonetheless, with more books and magazines that he has on his mobile library, he begins overwhelmed, prompting him to use the bicycle to move around to lend books.
"I’ve been doing this and enjoying this," he said, adding that he uses his bicycle for his mobile library.
Rahmat added that he never rents books and magazine in exchange for money.
"If they give me the money, I accept it. If not, no problem,” he said.
Now Ramhat hopes he can build a convenient library in his house for his readers.
"I still cannot materialize it yet," he said.
Purwakarta Regent Dedi Mulyadi, however, promised to build a reading room for Rahmat.
"We will build a spacious two-story reading room in the land near his house," Dedi said.
NANANG SUTISNA
