Fueling Minds With Stories

My name is Emily Moberly and I’m 25 years old. In high school a wise man told me, “Don’t ever make a decision out of fear.” It was then that I decided that in my life I wanted to make a habit of taking risks. One of the scariest risks I’ve taken so far began the summer after I graduated from college. In August 2008 I boarded a place to Honduras to teach English for a year. I had traveled to developing countries before, but this was different. I had never lived in a developing country for a whole year before …and I had never really lived by myself before.

Honduras was incredible. I was surrounded by jungles, Caribbean beaches and tropical music. I loved exploring the markets and developing relationships with the people I saw regularly at coffee shops and grocery stores. My Spanish started to improve. Living alone turned out to be a lot of fun, too! I became a lot better at cooking and enjoyed having all my space entirely to myself.

But although Honduras was a lot of fun, it was also very difficult at times. For the first time I lived in a country where I didn’t have access to books. There was no adequate library in our city, no Barns & Noble — I couldn’t even order books off of Amazon. As an avid reader this was so difficult for me. I felt like my mind wasn’t stimulated enough. I saw how the lack of books in Honduras impacted my students, too. They were juniors and seniors in high school but most of them had never read a book for fun before. I was shocked. I can’t imagine a world without books, and yet that was pretty much how they had lived their whole life.

I went home to California for Christmas and decided that I couldn’t let me students continue on without books. I bought 40 classics and a few other books that I loved growing up! I brought them back to my classes and introduced them as “Miss Moberly’s Library”. I made them read for an hour a day. At first they hated it. They complained all the time. But eventually they started to fall in love.

One of my students, Walter, was always getting in trouble for drumming in class and turning in incomplete homework. He cared about three things only: girls, soccer and drumming. When I introduced the books he complained like the rest … until he found “I Know What You Did Last Summer” by Lois Duncan. After that he was hooked! By the end of the semester he had read 11 books!

Getting to watch my students fall in love with reading inspired me. I went back to California and at first got a job at a magazine. But no matter how many hours I spent at the office I couldn’t put thoughts of my students out of my head. If I could help my students in Honduras discover a love for reading why couldn’t I do that for more kids?

I decided to start a nonprofit organization called Traveling Stories. We would exist to provide books to kids who have none and to inspire a love for reading everywhere! It’s been a little over a year since I started Traveling Stories and already we’ve set up libraries in Sudan and El Salvador! Because of us kids in those places now have access to books! This summer we will launch a library in Nicaragua and in San Diego, my hometown, we’ll start a Story Telling Tent.

With Traveling Stories growing so fast I was getting more and more busy. I no longer could work full time for the magazine and still have time to keep up with Traveling Stories. So last March I decided to quit my job. Now I pay my bills by doing freelance marketing work from home. The money isn’t as good as before, but at least now I have a lot more time to focus on Traveling Stories! My dream is to continue working on the libraries we have already started and add new ones around the world. When I turn 30, in five years, I want to take a trip around the world to visit all the libraries I’ve helped set up!

Although it’s been a scary and sometimes stressful experience, starting my own organization and quitting my job in order to pursue my dream has made me realize that with hard work I can accomplish anything. I encourage every young woman reading this to first of all grab a book, and second of all to figure out what your dream is and then go for it! Never let fear keep you from taking risks.

Find me at: http://www.travelingstories.org