Selling used books to help schools in Nepal

"Do one thing that scares you next year." A book with this quote scribbled on it sent Mr Randall Chong on a trip to Nepal, and it was through books that he found a way to give back to the community there.

Mr Chong received the book in 2016 as a Christmas gift from a friend. The following December, he made good on that resolution by trekking to the base camp of Mount Everest in the Himalayas.

At that point, he had been working at various start-ups for the previous five years and wanted to "get away" for a while. Having long nursed a passion for entrepreneurship, he was also hoping to find his purpose in life.

In Nepal, he met a 16-year-old porter who used to walk three to four hours daily to school. When he visited a school, he realised that students faced blank walls and untrained teachers.

The 29-year-old said: "I realised that I could go back to Singapore, call some friends, raise some money and come back to paint some walls. Or I could dedicate one year to raising money for schools there. I chose the second route, and it's been three years."

He went on to found social enterprise Books Beyond Borders, which sells second-hand books donated in Singapore to raise funds for the education of Nepalese children.

To date, it has raised more than $30,000. The money is given via grants to its partner enterprise Teach for Nepal, which trains educators before deploying them to rural areas. Books Beyond Borders' grants cover teacher training expenses, as well as classroom projects teachers might want to start in their schools. For instance, funds were provided for a teacher who wanted to start a science laboratory in her school.

The social enterprise decides how many such projects it can fund every six months, based on its net profit.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, schools in Nepal were shut for an entire year and students in rural areas lacked technological support.

So Books Beyond Borders funded a project by Teach for Nepal to print classroom syllabuses and record lessons as audio clips that could be broadcast over the radio for students to listen to.

Books Beyond Borders also funded the rebuilding of a school that had been partly destroyed during a flood in July.

"School is not just a place to learn and study. For a lot of students, it's a place where they feel safe. It's a place where they feel like they belong somewhere," Mr Chong said.

Prior to Books Beyond Borders, he had dabbled in other fund-raising methods such as selling cookies, which contributed to the total funds raised by the social enterprise. But when the pandemic hit, he decided to stick to collecting and selling second-hand books.

He said he has always been a fan of recirculating used books, which is better for the environment.

In July, he set up The Book Barracks at Kong Beng Industrial Building, in Jalan Pemimpin in Singapore. The 450 sq m space houses nearly 5,000 donated books and is open to the public for buying books every Friday to Sunday.

"The people who donate to our cause, be it in monetary terms or by donating books, all have a passion for literacy," he said.