José Alberto Gutiérrez is helping to educate and inspire children in Bogota, Colombia with the garbage he finds on his route as a sanitation worker.
You see, Gutiérrez collects all of the discarded books that he finds that are in good condition and usually kept separate from the trash. He’s been taking the books home with him for 20 years.
“I realised that people were throwing books away in the rubbish. I started to rescue them,” he told BBC.
What started with one book, Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” is now up to 25,000. The books now consume the lower level of his house in massive stacks.
Gutiérrez’s collection eventually became a community library after locals would ask to borrow books to help get their children school-ready.
His library is now referred to as, “La Fuerza de las Palabras” or “Strength in Words.”
As the library grew the garbage man’s family started helping out with coordinating book pickups, handling administrative work, and even organizing events. Other garbage men have also gotten into the habit of dropping off books they find at Gutiérrez’s home.
“The more books we give away, the more come to us,” he said.
Gutiérrez says his goal is to spread literacy among children in his town, a low-income neighborhood with one school that lacked a library.
“The whole value of what we do lies in helping kids start reading,” Gutiérrez told Al Jazeera. “I grew up, here and I can tell you it got me a Ph.D. in marginalization and poverty. Kids here don’t have a place to study; instead, they have to start working early.”
Thanks to Gutiérrez, Bogota’s school now has a library. He has also helped bring books to more than 235 other schools and communities.
Now his dream of bringing the joy of reading to children is growing even bigger. A donated old ambulance which will be transformed into a bookmobile, according to Upworthy. He even plans to build a physical library.
His efforts are not only touching children but adults too.
The BBC reports that Gutiérrez is also giving books to fighters who are demobilized as a result of peace negotiations in Colombia. A fighter from the Farc rebel group has even reached out to him asking for books that would help fighters prepare for jobs when the return to civilian life.
“Books transformed me, so I think books are a symbol of hope for those places. They are a symbol of peace,” said Gutierrez.
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