In Footscray's heart, this library brings Africa's rich history to life

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A new community centre dedicated to celebrating African history and culture has opened in Melbourne’s west. The Baai-Alkebulan African library arts and cultural centre opened its doors earlier this month. The founder hopes the centre will be a hub for Melbourne’s young African Australians.

Transcript

00:00Megang Reach says he's found his purpose.

00:09The 30-year-old established an African library art and history museum after struggling to

00:14find books that reflected his heritage.

00:16When you see your own people on the book covers, it changes your approach to it.

00:22We've got history books as well as things on health.

00:25Growing up in Melbourne's inner-city suburbs, Megang says the history he learned at school

00:29lacked representation.

00:30You just gobble up whatever is in front of you until later on you will know better.

00:36He initially started collecting books for his own interest, but soon he was loaning them

00:41out to his friends and members of his community and the library was born.

00:45Just to have a place that you can breathe and, you know, see your own people.

00:51But the road to the library wasn't an easy one.

00:55Megang's idea came from a desire to help his community after a spate of tragedies.

00:59So a lot of my friends that I know that I grew up with and really remember the early days,

01:07some of them have actually passed, a lot committed suicide, a lot that have, you know, locked up

01:13in prisons.

01:14For me it was like, we have to do something now.

01:18Spaces like this help create safety, you know, for our people, our young people.

01:23But also build cultural sensitivity and responsivity by inviting our broader communities to come

01:30and say, hey, you know what, this is who we are, this is where we're from.

01:35These are our similarities and these are our differences, there's beauty in both.

01:39When the library first opened, Megang was mostly funding the project on his own.

01:43But his vision for its future is to create a space that can grow with the help of the community.

01:48Hopefully we have something that will continue for the rest of my life and beyond.

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