As we are getting ready to launch our project I’d like to introduce the three community libraries in Xela who will be participating. From San Carlos Sija, Biblioteca Fuente de Sabiduría (source of wisdom), inaugurated on April 2007. From Huitán, Biblioteca Mi Nuevo Mundo (my new world), inaugurated on March 2009 and from Cabricán, where the workshops will take place, Biblioteca Nuevo Amanecer (new sunrise), inaugurated on July 2004. These community libraries, as all the libraries in the Riecken network, have stand out in their communities by not only providing access to information, through free access to books and internet (though in the past years it has been a real challenge to continue offering this service for free) and a wide reading program, but also through a number or programs and projects aimed to generate leadership and civic engagement. These programs range from cultural and environmental to health and economic development projects.
We at Riecken Community Libraries are very excited and grateful for this opportunity and looking forward to sharing the progress with the Rising Voices family. This project has generated a fair amount of interest in other organizations, like Acción Ciudadana (Citizen’s Action) who will be implementing the Right to Access Information workshops, the Transparency and Integrity Project from USAID, who will be following the project’s development so that in the future they could support the replication in the rest of the eleven libraries in Guatemala, and bloggers from Central America who have offered support to develop the workshops on information and communication technology. We are planning to start in late May, we’ll keep you posted. Good luck to all!
Thanks, Romeo for the update. It’s great to see a picture of the Library at Nuevo Amanecer. It really brings things to life. Those computers look great.