Describe something you achieved that you are proud of

Something I achieved and I'm very proud of is that I set up a small library in a primary school in my grandfather's village, near Debre Birhan in Ethiopia. Before that, the school had almost no books except the textbooks, and many children never read a story book in their life.

To achieve it, I first asked my friends and relatives to donate books or money. I made a post on social media, and some of my cousins who are living in America sent money also. With the money I bought books in Amharic and English from bookshops in Addis Ababa. My uncle is a carpenter, so he made the shelves for free. Then I trained two teachers how to lend the books and keep a record.

It took about eight months, from the first idea until the opening day. It was longer than I planned, because in the rainy season the road to the village was too bad for driving, so we could not deliver the shelves.

I'm proud of it for two reasons. Firstly, when we opened, more than one hundred children borrowed books in the first week, and one girl read a whole book loudly to her friends. Secondly, many people told me I was too young for doing this, I was only nineteen, but I proved that they were wrong.

The achievement I'm proudest of is setting up a small lending library at the primary school in my grandfather's village, not far from Debre Birhan. When I visited a couple of summers ago, I found out the school had textbooks and nothing else; most of the kids had never held a storybook.

The way I went about it was fairly simple, but it involved a lot of persuading. I started a fundraising post online and messaged pretty much everyone I knew, including cousins in the diaspora, who turned out to be incredibly generous. With what we raised, I bought around six hundred books in Amharic and English from second-hand sellers in Addis, which stretched the money much further than new ones would have. My uncle, who's a carpenter, built the shelves in exchange for lunch, and I spent a weekend showing two teachers how to run a simple borrowing system with cards.

Altogether it took about eight months. I'd hoped to finish in four, but the rainy season turned the road into a mudslide, and we couldn't get the shelves up there until it had dried out.

I'm proud of it partly because of the result. In the first week over a hundred children borrowed something, and I'll never forget a little girl reading an entire book aloud to her friends under a tree. But I'm also proud because quite a few adults told me I was too young to pull it off. I was nineteen, and proving them wrong felt rather good, I have to admit.

I'd say the thing I'm proudest of is the little library I set up at the primary school in my grandfather's village, about an hour's drive beyond Debre Birhan. I'd gone back for a family visit and wandered into a classroom, and it struck me that apart from a few battered textbooks, there wasn't a single book in the place a child might read for pleasure.

Getting it off the ground was mostly a matter of nagging people. I put an appeal online and then followed up personally with everyone I could think of, from university friends to second cousins in the diaspora, several of whom were far more generous than I'd dared to hope. Rather than buy new, I scoured the second-hand stalls in Addis, which meant the money stretched to about six hundred books in Amharic and English. My uncle, a carpenter, knocked together the shelves in return for being fed, and I spent a weekend helping two teachers set up a card system so the books would actually come back.

From the first idea to the opening day took roughly eight months, twice what I'd planned, largely because the rains turned the last stretch of road into a quagmire and nothing could get through until it dried out.

What makes me proud is mainly what happened next. Within a week more than a hundred children had borrowed something, and one afternoon I watched a girl of about eight reading an entire book aloud to a ring of friends under a eucalyptus tree. That image has never left me. There's also a less noble reason, I'll confess: plenty of adults had told me a nineteen-year-old couldn't pull it off, and quietly proving them wrong was deeply satisfying.