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The benefits of reading cannot be emphasized enough. Reading opens a window onto the wider world, and helps create well-informed and more knowledgeable citizens.

Unfortunately, reading is not a big part of Indonesian culture — or at least, that’s what Dessy Sekar Astina believes.

Dessy is the program director of Forum Indonesia Membaca (Indonesian Reading Forum), a nonprofit organization that seeks to promote reading among young people.

“Our young people don’t seem to make reading a part of their daily routine, and that’s sad,” she said.

Forum Indonesia Membaca was established in October 2001 by 15 people who believed that instilling a reading culture among young Indonesians was one way they could contribute to the country’s progress.

Ade Oktarini, a member of the organization since 2003, said most young people preferred hanging out with their friends or surfing social networking sites like Facebook to reading.

The country, however, seems to be making inroads where literacy is concerned. In September, Hamid Muhammad, the director general of nontraditional education at the Ministry of Education, said that by the end of the year, the illiteracy rate in Indonesia would stand at about 5.3 percent, or about 8.3 million people.

The problem, according to Desy, is in actually encouraging people to read.

“Our government only focuses on literacy initiatives and that is not enough,” she said.

Ade agreed that picking up a book did not come naturally to many Indonesians. “In this country, you don’t see people reading a book in public places, like a bus stop or a park,” Ade said. And while in many developed countries it’s not unusual to see someone reading a thick paperback while waiting for a bus, Ade said that “here, you’ll probably get teased for holding a big book.”

In contrast, she said, it’s so much easier to find young people glued to their computer screens or smartphones, logged on to Facebook or engrossed in a video game.

Dessy said the spread of technology itself had become a barrier to encouraging young people to read.

She said people preferred watching TV, surfing the Internet or playing video games on PlayStation to reading.

“The fact that technology is advancing every day is a good thing,” Dessy said. “But we have to use this technology wisely.

“Our young people think that they can find everything on Google,” she said. “Well, that’s not totally wrong. Google does give us everything, but only in a small portions. If they want to find out more information, in a lengthier version, they have to rely on books.”

The importance of reading, Dessy said, could be seen in Unesco’s “Literacy for Life” report in 2006, which showed that there is a strong connection between illiteracy and poverty. Countries that have high illiteracy levels also have more people living below the poverty line, according to the report. “That’s how important reading is,” Dessy said.

She said the government had not done enough to promote the written word, pointing to the lack of libraries in the country. Dessy said the government had been unable to work with community groups to improve local libraries.

In addition to the scarcity of reading materials, there is also the issue of cost. “Sometimes we can’t blame people for not reading books,” Dessy said. “This is because they can’t find places where they can borrow books for free, or buy them at cheap prices.”

Forum Indonesia Membaca is trying to spread the love of the written word from its modest office at the Bank Mandiri Museum in Kota Tua, West Jakarta. They have implemented the “Begini Begitu” program for kids and “Makin Menter” for teens. These programs involve weekly storytelling sessions, books discussions and writing workshops.

“We want to let young people know that reading can be so much fun,” Dessy said. “And it’s a lot easier if this is done as early as possible.”

In addition, the organization also holds “World Book Day Indonesia,” an annual event where book publishers and members of the community, from nongovernment organizations to green groups, come together. The event was last held in May.

Forum Indonesia Membaca is run by a core group of 10 full-time volunteers, with as many as 150 part-time members.

The organization also manages the Bank Mandiri Museum’s library, Library@Batavia.