Tanya Manoj is the founder of Breaking Book Barriers (BBB), a test prep book exchange for high schoolers. She is currently a junior in high school from Massachusetts. Roughly a year after its founding, BBB has a diverse team with members from around the world with over 1,000 followers on their Instagram account! In her interview with Detester Magazine, Tanya explains how she started BBB, the challenges she faced, what she hopes to accomplish in the future, advice she has for other high school students aspiring to start their own student-initiated organizations and much more!
Who are you?
My name is Tanya, and I am the founder of Breaking Book Barriers. I am a junior in high school and I started the organization my sophomore year. I am really passionate about making sure that students have equitable access to test prep material, which is why I started BBB. I am also involved in activities related to business and tech education.
What is BBB’s Mission?
Our mission is to educate people on test prep/educational inequality as well as give students the tools they need to succeed on standardized tests. We educate students and provide testing tips through our social media and blog posts. We also run an online book exchange where students can ship their used SAT, ACT, and AP books to students who need them. We essentially facilitate those exchanges.
How did you start BBB?
I assembled a team pretty early on. One of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned is that it is impossible to reach an organization’s potential without having a group of passionate people running it. We ran into some issues early on when getting ourselves organized and building our website, but we definitely overcame those!
What do you hope to achieve in the future?
In the future, I plan on doing a lot more collaborations with established nonprofits to maximize our impact. The whole team is also super excited for next fall, when we begin our chapter system and are able to donate even more books! Overall, we are trying to make an impact on students taking standardized tests who may not have as many resources to help them succeed.
Why did you start your organization Breaking Book Barriers? What did that process look like?
I wanted to give students access to test prep. In the beginning, I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to take the organization, whether it was purely informational like social media, the book exchange or something else. I ended up starting social media pages, building a website for the book exchange. I started roughly a year ago, worked on it over the summer, and by the end of the summer the website was up. By this time, we were posting consistently on social media and starting to get a team together. It took about two months to get running and to get my ideas together.
What inspired you?
The experience of purchasing test prep books. I thought there had to be a way to make it more affordable and more sustainable. Once you’re done studying for a test, you don’t do much with the book, and if you don’t write anything in it then it’s practically brand new. That was the thought process that led me to want to exchange test prep books among students.
How does the book exchange work?
I like to call it an online lending library. Students can donate their used books once they’re finished studying by filling out a form (stating what book it is and including a picture). Additionally, students can request a book. I, or someone on the team will contact two people for a book to be shipped from one location to another.
What challenges did you face?
At first, we opened the book exchange internationally, but then we quickly realized that it wouldn’t work due to shipping fees. So, we had to limit the book exchange to within the US. Another challenge was figuring what exactly to do. The book exchange was a challenge to put together, conceptualize, and explain. Starting anything new is a challenge, there were many ideas bouncing around and we had to decide where we wanted to take the organization. With COVID we took a break from the book exchange. We’re just starting it up again. There has been a continuous shift in ideas and desire to start new projects, which is hard, but it is also the cool thing about being a student-run organization where we’re not having to answer to anybody and just testing things out for ourselves.
What have been the effects of COVID on BBB?
We’ve been virtual from the start. I’m from Massachusetts but not that many people on the team are. We have team members from all over the US. We have team members in the Middle East and in Europe too. It was easy to pivot when COVID hit as we didn’t have to adjust to online workspaces. We already had Slack and we were used to making phone calls. When COVID hit, we slowed down a lot due to the shock of it and we had other things on our minds. We took a few weeks off and paused shipping books because people had other things on their minds other than getting to the post office and we did not want to promote people leaving their houses in areas that were under lockdowns or shelter in places.
How did you come up with the name breaking book barriers?
I’m pretty sure I was just talking it over with a friend. We were throwing out either rhyming names or alliterations, and we came up with this. It sounds good, but if you go in deep, our goal is to break the barriers that test prep book expenses and more broadly test prep inequity. I thought it was cool when I dug deeper into the name.
Do you need to donate a book to get a book?
Not necessarily, we are trying to help people so that’s not the case at all. However, we want to be somewhat equitable. We’ve had many people get a book without donating one. Check our website for more information: breakingbookbarriers.org/
Advice for students who want to start their own student-led organizations?
I feel like it can be really hard to take the first step. I came up with this idea and I sort of sat with it for a month because I thought it wouldn’t work or why bother putting myself out there? I think taking that initial step, whether that’s getting a web domain or making an Instagram account, that first step really helps and it helps you get to the next steps. Also, I think it's important to know that if you fail at something, most people have and most successful founders have tried different organizations, start ups or non profits that didn’t work out and they just had to jump onto the next thing and I think that’s totally true. Don’t be afraid of failure.
What is the most rewarding part of having founded BBB?
The fact that people use it, the fact that people joined my team, and followed us on social media. To this day I feel like that’s crazy and I feel like the fact that a teenager can start something. We’re such a small organization but the fact that a teenager can have an impact is really cool.
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