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For most children, a first encounter with a book happens at home, in a classroom, or on a library shelf. But for thousands of children in Uganda’s rural and isolated communities, that first encounter simply hasn’t happened. Not because they don’t want to read, but because books have never made it to where they
live.
That’s the gap SustainMe set out to close with Reading on Wheels (ROW), a mobile library initiative and extension of our Community Library program.
Where the Idea Came From
Reading on Wheels began with a simple but sobering realization: while SustainMe’s Community Library was transforming how children engaged with books in and around our reach, many children living just a few miles further, in villages without roads, schools, or nearby libraries, had no access to books at all.
Distance and isolation had quietly become barriers to something as fundamental as a child’s ability to read.
Rather than wait for these communities to reach us, we decided to reach them.
A Library That Moves
Reading on Wheels reimagines what a library can be. Instead of a fixed building children must travel to, ROW is a mobile library that travels to children, packed with books, stories, and volunteers, driving deep into rural communities that are often left out of educational programming altogether.
Every ROW visit is intentional. Our team doesn’t simply drop off books and leave. We set up reading circles, sit with children, read stories aloud, and encourage them to explore books at their own pace, many for the very first time. For a child who has never held a storybook before, that first physical
interaction with the page, the pictures, and the words can be a quietly powerful moment. It signals that stories, learning, and imagination belong to them too.
These sessions aren’t just about literacy in the technical sense. They build curiosity, confidence, and a love of learning that can shape a child’s relationship with education for years to come.
The Impact So Far
Since its launch, Reading on Wheels has traveled miles beyond SustainMe’s office to reach communities that would otherwise be invisible to most educational and development programs. To date, the initiative has reached over 2,000 children across multiple rural communities in Uganda.
Behind that number are real moments: a child sounding out their first sentence, a group of kids crowding around a picture book, a village square turned into an open-air reading corner for an afternoon. These are the moments that remind us why access to books matters, not as an abstract development goal, but as a
lived, felt experience for a child who might otherwise never have had it.
Why This Work Matters
Literacy is one of the strongest predictors of long-term opportunity for individual children and for entire communities. Yet access remains deeply unequal, particularly in rural and hard-to-reach areas where
infrastructure, resources, and educational support are limited. Reading on Wheels exists to interrupt that inequality, one village and one visit at a time.
By meeting children where they are, quite literally, SustainMe is working to ensure that geography doesn’t determine a child’s access to books, stories, and the doors that reading can open.
Looking Ahead
As Reading on Wheels grows, our goal is to expand its reach even further, into more communities, with more books, and with more consistent visits that let children build an ongoing relationship with reading rather than a single memorable afternoon. Every additional route we add means more children who get to experience the simple, transformative joy of a good story.
Get Involved
Reading on Wheels runs on the support of people who believe every child deserves access to books, no matter how remote their community. Here’s how you can help us go further:
- Donate to help fund books, transport, and community visits
- Volunteer with our team on upcoming ROW outreach days
- Partner with SustainMe as an organization, school, or publisher
- Share this story to help more people learn about the work
Visit [SustainMe’s website] or reach out to us directly to find out how you can support Reading on Wheels and help bring books, and the opportunities they carry, to more children across Uganda.
Together, we can make sure that no child’s love of reading is limited by how far they live from a library.
