Amachuma and New Opportunities
A couple of weekends ago I visited in a small community in the city of El Alto with a Marynoll Missionary and her family. I went there to help them out in their attempts to build a community library.
On Saturday morning I went to a meeting of the Comitte Impulsor, the group coordinating attempts to bring Goni to justice (see We want Justice).
There was alot of energy in the meeting, alot of hope in the new government and alot of strategising. It was decided that we need to start pressuring the US government more intensly to deliver the papers so that the legal process can start. So we are relaunching the online petition. If you havent signed it, please do and please forward it on to other groups and people who might want to sign it.
Sign Here
Amachuma and a number of other communities in El Alto are attempting to set up community libraries, with the help from Maryknoll and other funders. My friends had asked me to come along and try and assist with planning, training and programming.
When you get out into the campo you realise that sometimes, in the city, you still live in a little bubble. The adobe houses are scattered next to potato fields on the mountainside. Small houses with whole families sharing as little as 2 small rooms. When potato fields bloom there is a sea of purple flowers as far as the eye can see, unfortunately a couple of weeks before a hail storm wiped out one of the crops, therefore none of the flowers were there, just different shades of brown as far as the eye can see.
The library project is small but already in Sekarta, has had a big impact. Here the have become a community space. They provide a service so desperately needed, and it is a story echoed across the country. School students cannot afford to by text books so they need to have access to them from somewhere, a library is often the only place they can find these. Reading programs are small and with few resources very difficult to maintain interest. Staff are volunteers or students paid on minimim wages, with no formal library training it makes it difficult for services to developed.
I am hoping to help the library´s in El Alto and here in Cochabamba over the next year or so. I have decided to stop working at the American School here in Cochabamba and work on some ideas I have for community library development. Already I have secured a grant from the International Reading Association to run a literacy program in 5 libraries in Cochabamba. Its a risk but I need to put my skills to real work to benefit a whole community, not just a small, elite population.
So with all these plans I am excited and looking forward to new challenges, it will all begin in June.
On Saturday morning I went to a meeting of the Comitte Impulsor, the group coordinating attempts to bring Goni to justice (see We want Justice).
There was alot of energy in the meeting, alot of hope in the new government and alot of strategising. It was decided that we need to start pressuring the US government more intensly to deliver the papers so that the legal process can start. So we are relaunching the online petition. If you havent signed it, please do and please forward it on to other groups and people who might want to sign it.
Sign Here
Amachuma and a number of other communities in El Alto are attempting to set up community libraries, with the help from Maryknoll and other funders. My friends had asked me to come along and try and assist with planning, training and programming.
When you get out into the campo you realise that sometimes, in the city, you still live in a little bubble. The adobe houses are scattered next to potato fields on the mountainside. Small houses with whole families sharing as little as 2 small rooms. When potato fields bloom there is a sea of purple flowers as far as the eye can see, unfortunately a couple of weeks before a hail storm wiped out one of the crops, therefore none of the flowers were there, just different shades of brown as far as the eye can see.
The library project is small but already in Sekarta, has had a big impact. Here the have become a community space. They provide a service so desperately needed, and it is a story echoed across the country. School students cannot afford to by text books so they need to have access to them from somewhere, a library is often the only place they can find these. Reading programs are small and with few resources very difficult to maintain interest. Staff are volunteers or students paid on minimim wages, with no formal library training it makes it difficult for services to developed.
I am hoping to help the library´s in El Alto and here in Cochabamba over the next year or so. I have decided to stop working at the American School here in Cochabamba and work on some ideas I have for community library development. Already I have secured a grant from the International Reading Association to run a literacy program in 5 libraries in Cochabamba. Its a risk but I need to put my skills to real work to benefit a whole community, not just a small, elite population.
So with all these plans I am excited and looking forward to new challenges, it will all begin in June.
posted by Paula Pfoeffer at
1:02 am
