“I don’t read books but devour them.” This is what Loa says, as she is browsing through a book about Nelson Mandela, in the library she founded, and she is still at the age of 12, in a shantytown in Rio de Janeiro.

The library is a room not exceeding 20 square meters, and the roof is made of iron sheets. The library contains about 18,000 books carefully arranged on shelves, while pillows are strewn on the floor. It is her own world, which she called «or Mondo da Loa» (Moon World).

The little girl, whose real name is Raisa Loire de Oliveira, chose a name for the moon, but it is very realistic. In a video I published a short time ago, I went to the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Crivila, says the girl with curly blond hair: "At the age of 12, I came to a neighborhood more than I did during your entire term."

The girl has been staying since the age of five, in Tabajaras, a shanty town on a hill overlooking the upscale areas of Copacabana and Botafogo.

The idea of ​​creating a library was formed six months ago, when Loa visited a book fair.

"I saw a mother telling her young daughter that she did not have the money to buy a book for three riyals (0.60 euros), so I told myself that I should do something," the girl added.

After returning from the exhibition, the teenager secretly took her grandmother's phone, and launched a book-gathering campaign via Facebook. Before returning the phone to her grandmother, Fania Ribeiro, vice-president of the Hay Association, wrote that she was her grandmother, to ask her to give her a hall in the association's building.

Ribeiro immediately learned that the letter from Lua. She replied, "If you are going to take care of yourself, then so be it."

Her grandmother, Fatima Oliveira, a 60-year-old seamstress, who raised Lua since her childhood, asserts, "When I learned that she did all this without my knowledge, I rebuked her, but later she fully supported her."

The teenage video soon made a big bang, and donations began pouring in from all over the city. Later, the girl participated in TV programs, which extended her project to more popularity.

The books, collected by Loa, succeeded in returning the desire to read to shantytown children.

"I like to come here, instead of hanging out on the street when I'm not in school," said Daniel Coto Nascimento, 10, lying on a pillow, holding a storyboard in his hand. Previously, I only thought about ball and video games. ”

To other destinations

Even today, the girl continues to receive quantities of books, up to 1500 books per week, and she is abundant in her small library, where large boxes full of books are stacked behind the shelves, and ready to be sent to another destination.

- Since the age of five, the girl has lived in a shantytown on a hill overlooking the upscale areas of Copacabana and Botafogo.

The books that Luo collected succeeded in returning the desire to read to the children of shantytowns.