By Ebele Orakpo
Reading, no doubt, has proved to be a very important way of improving oneself in every area of life, health inclusive, as you make use of the grey cells of your brain to think and become smarter.

According to Burke Hedges, world-renowned author, speaker and trainer, “Reading, like no other medium, can transform your life in a flash, and you never know which book… at which time in your life… might be the one that rocks your world and inspires you to grow in ways you never thought possible.”

This line of thought was perhaps what inspired Mrs. Juliet Onaeko, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Pen & Pages, a knowledge resource centre. In a recent chat with Vanguard in Abuja, Mrs. Onaeko, a linguist and business administrator by training noted that the issue of poor reading culture is not peculiar to Nigeria as there are so many changes going on all over the world that affect reading. Excerpts:

Upon completion of her first degree in linguistics, Mrs. Juliet Onaeko went on to the Business School, Netherlands for her master’s in Business Administration.

Narrating how she ventured into the world of books, Mrs. Onaeko said she fell in love with books through her brother who exposed her to reading very early in life. “I discovered that I usually feel this inner joy when I am able to put a smile on somebody’s face; do something that will make someone become better. I don’t expect people to meet me and leave the same way.

There must be a way that I can add value to their lives. The business actually started as a hobby and as an effort to meet a need. I started with N20,000 and a whole lot of time I had to just keep turning the money over and over and it was good because by end of that year, we had made like hundreds of thousands of naira. That was encouraging.

A lot of times, some of our suppliers were also very considerate. So I could always have more goods than my money could handle until I was strong enough to buy outright. I was selling a lot of books before the name Pen & Pages came to be. During my youth service, I was involved in selling books. I used to bring in a lot of books whenever I travelled within and outside the country,” she said.

However, in 2002, like the Bible says, all things work together for good…’, during the period she had to stay in the hospital with her mother who was hospitalized for three weeks, the idea to set up a book outlet hit her. “I would sit in the lobby watching TV but I was really bored. I am a book person so TV is just secondary.

I had this Bible I had been reading and I just felt like reading other things. I sat there and said ‘well, it would be nice to have a book outlet in the hospital so in-patients, especially the book-hungry ones like me, could get something to read. I talked to the medical director about setting up a book outlet that will be beneficial to his patients and other visitors and he bought the idea but said I will have to pay for the space and I agreed.

The place is still running nine years on. It started before Pen & Pages actually got incorporated,” she stated. On what Pen & Pages is all about, Mrs Onaeko said: “On the Pen & Pages platform, we do a lot of educational stuff, working with individuals, organisations, schools, providing books and other learning materials.

We also host the Abuja Writers Forum in-house, trying to give back to the community. So we encourage a lot of literary activities in appreciation of their contributions to the literary development of Nigeria.”

Mrs. Onaeko who believes so much in the Chinese proverb that says: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime, noted that Pen & Pages is all about empowerment; “that is why our sticker says: ‘Be Empowered.’

We believe we can empower people through books, educational training and other materials. The moment I find out that the books are no longer empowering people, I will leave the book line. I’m still here because I believe there is a lot of empowerment stuff in books so all you need to do is to get one and read,” she enthused.

To actualise the aim, the Pen & Pages boss said she relates to her customers one-on-one. “I try to see why they are buying or reading a particular book. Some buy books to improve their communication skills, some to improve their investment IQ, some to improve their relationships, some because they want to grow spiritually, some for entertainment, information etc.

So once we know that, it is easier for us to help. Again, I don’t expect you to buy because you want to improve your relationship and then a year later, you are still struggling with that same challenge. The book is supposed to impact your life, if it doesn’t, then I don’t think you should continue. We are not just selling books for selling sake,” she stated.

In her quest to empower people, Mrs Onaeko came up with the Knowledge Exchange Network (KEN), a non-governmental organisation which started as a book club under Pen and Pages Reading Club. “It was a different kind of book club because we were all about empowering people.

Before we register you, you let us know your interests. I wanted to really spread out, to involve a whole lot of other issues so we moved it over to the NGO platform. A lot of the things we do in KEN are charity-oriented and Pen & Pages being a limited liability company, may not be able to sustain them.

We set up KEN to meet the needs of those who want to have continuous learning in an informal environment so you don’t need to wait till you get to school or classroom before you learn. Under KEN, we incorporate a whole lot of things that still boil down to learning and empowering people.”

Some of the programmes run under KEN are: provision of a training hall made available to people, hosting of activities especially educational, monthly round-table discussions amongst members etc.

She stated that KEN has a lot of aspects like the KEN Community Club (KCC) which cares for kids. “It is the core of the whole thing as it incorporates the traditional book club and social networking. So you are not just reading, you are also impacting others.

We encourage people to donate books to the poor and the less privileged. You are not just there for yourself, you get impacted and you impact others and that is the whole idea. That is what we hope will transform Nigeria. Our goal is to build a community of empowered readers and leaders.

You read, you become a leader. We want people who at the end of the day will not just read and become morons but will become leaders; people who will be the best at whatever they do through knowledge acquisition and continuous learning. We are hoping that Nigeria, overtime, will transform to a well informed community through what we are doing,” she said.