Live in for literacy 2012

Humza Khan and Qingcen Cai will be living in the library for a week. Originally from Wuhan, China, Cai is an Environmental Science student at SFU. In his application for this year's Live in For Literacy campaign he wrote, "I always stay at the library till 11:45pm. It's as though the library is my lover, so when I have to leave her at 11:45, it really hurts."

Starting on Friday January 20th Khan and Cai will set up a tent just inside the entrance of the Bennett Library and live there 24 hours a day for seven days. The SFU goal is to raise $5,000 to build library capacity in India. Last year the SFU project raised about $4,100 which went to Room to Read, an organization that has already created over 4,000 libraries in India with book titles in 92 local languages. Nine Canadian universities are participating this year, including UBC and the total goal is $27,000.

Khan has never met Cai and says, "It will be interesting." Khan wants to raise money for libraries because he grew up in a number of developing countries. "I saw a lot of people not having the education I had. It's a way for me to help out the poor in India, who need it."

The rules stipulate that the students can only leave the tent to go to class, have a shower, or get food, which they must eat it in the library. A small team of substitutes are available to take over when either Cai or Khan leave because two students must be there at all times. You can watch the whole thing live on a webcam at Liveinforliteracy.com, where you can also donate.

Event organizer Kymberly McGarvie lived in the library last year. Her advice to this year's participants: "Bring a blindfold and earplugs because the lights don't go off." Even though the library is closed there's a lot going on. She says, "They vacuum the carpets in the New Books area at 3:00am." But the effort resulted in many lasting relationships for McGarvie. "You do meet a lot of interesting people that want to help out."