When Jim Wolford first visited Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda, he realized he had a lot to learn. As the CEO of Atomic Data, based in Minneapolis, he had an itch to do something to support Alight and he also had a lot of ideas. But when he was actually walking down Nakivale’s roads and chatting with the residents there, a light bulb went off—maybe his ideas weren’t supposed to be front and center. Maybe the people there had a lot to teach him about what was and wasn’t needed.
“When you hear the word refugee,” said Jim, “you think they’re here for a short period of time, that they’ll return home. But I learned that many people will never go back home. These settlements become their community. And once I learned that, I thought about the children there. I wanted to give them the same opportunities as my kids.”
One of those opportunities was reading. Jim and his wife, Amy, had learned the power of reading from their own children, Atticus and Phinneaus. They’re both avid readers. And having access to books, to escape imaginatively into other worlds, has made a great impact on their lives.
“It has so much to do with dreaming and development,” said Jim. “With books, there’s an opportunity to leave troubles behind and go to a different space.” What if, he thought, he could help refugee kids in Nakivale get access to those same dreams?
After a few years of inspiration, making mistakes, learning, growing, and learning again, the result was the Nakivale Library — a system designed for, and with, the community it serves. But it was a journey to get there.
