Working on sustainability...

I finally arranged for representatives from the National Public Library in San Salvador to meet with the mayor of Yucuaiquín last Thursday, April 10, 2013.

Lilian Montenegro from the National Public Library met with Carlos Gutierrez, mayor of Yucuaiquín, and came to a tentative agreement to work together to open a public library in Yucuaiquín.

Mr. Gutierrez was left with a contract to take to council and forward to the national library in San Salvador in order to formalize the agreement.

Terms include:
Mr. Gutierrez allocates a space within the city to house the library and provides a staff person to supervise. The city also commits to seek out ways to grow the initial collection which is provided by the National Library.

The national library commits to provide training and support to the new staff/program and incorporate the city into the network of public libraries.

Mr. Carlos Gutierrez and I.

Coordinator of public libraries and I.

Ms. Montenegro, Mr. Gutierrez and I.

Lilian Montenegro and I in front of the municipal hall.

The work continues and our involvement with the schools is solicited more and more!

Our visits to the schools are now bi-weekly and the children and youth are excited to receive us each time we come. We will visit the schools on the first and third week of each month going forward.

Modesto and I spend the time we are not out planning and preparing the activities for the weeks that we do go out on visits. We prepare reminder cards for children who did not return their books on the due date and attend the meetings we are invited to.

I have given presentations to parents at two schools; both of which are not ones we visit but still in the municipality. The topics have been learning difficulties and the role of the parent in a child's education. Of course I invite these communities to visit us at the library in Las Marias and access some of the self-help and other resource material we have available. So far we have had three parents come and become members of the library and check out books.

I have been asked to come and give a one hour English conversational class once a week at one of the schools and I'm in the process of coordinating the times and schedules for this which will begin this month.

I am still working on bringing the national library's representative to meet with Yucuaquin's mayor but the mayor has given his verbal support to establishing a library at a new building they are constructing which will house a medical clinic. That would certainly give more sustainability to the project once I exit the scene.

Pictures of the inauguration.

Children with some of the prizes given away.

This kindergardener came from a village about a 45 minute walk away!

Many parents stayed out of the way of the main sitting areas.

All ages were welcomed and all ages attended!

Some of the games brought to the village.

Clowning around. The clown also spoke about reading and gave away books as prizes.

Lining up for a tour of the bibliobus!

Toy area inside the bibliobus.

First activity in the bibliobus was a reading.

Face painting was one of the activities.

The newly painted tables at the school were prepared especially for additional activities during inauguration.

The inauguration was a great success! It was held on January 28^th and 29^th. It was held over tow days in order to accommodate the large number of people interested in attending from the various schools in the municipality. Most schools, with the exception of two sent parents, students and teachers to the event even the schools which are not part of the mobile library program at this point.

There were 435 students, parents and teachers in attendance on the 28^th and 311 students, parents, and teachers in attendance on the 29^th. To aid in managing these large numbers we had six staff from the national library’s Bibliobus from San Salvador. The Bibliobus is a traveling bus equipped with books and activities for children which promotes reading. It travels to communities around the country when requested and is part of the national strategy to foster reading and the national reading program.

Also, supporting us during the inauguration were one staff member, one volunteer and the Volunteer Director of the San Juan del Sur Biblioteca, in Nicaragua. They were instrumental in coordinating the days’ activities, and brought many of the prizes which were given away to the children. They traveled here by bus and I picked and dropped them off in San Miguel so that they could be part of the inaugural ceremony. The San Juan del Sur Biblioteca has been instrumental in the success of our mobile library project.

This report is a little late due to the holidays... and the planning of the inauguration! But better late than never... This month I had some nice downtime to celebrate the festivities of the village of Las Marias (above are pictures of the some of the festivities). My daughters were solicited to participate in the fundraising events of the town and were able to help raise funds for the church.

In early January I visited the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) in San Salvador and met with the Director, Lic. Velasco to discuss how we can work together the make the mobile library project more sustainable. I was also able to get their support for our inauguration happening on Jan. 28th and 29th. They will be sending out the "Bibliobus" to help present and raise awareness in the community about the importance of reading.

One other achievement during this meeting was getting their commitment to come and meet with the mayor of Yucuaiquin to discuss the possibility of opening a public library in the city of Yucuaiquin. I also met with the mayor over this past month to let invite his government to lend support to the project and attend the inauguration. Hopefully all of my petitions will come to fruition over the next month or so.

I visited several embassies over the past month taking a letter asking for support of our project and our  school and also to let them know about the project and its goals. I visited five embassies. Additionally, I request support from two bi-lingual schools and requested donations of books from their collections. It was a nice quiet month but I believe I accomplished many administrative tasks despite the holidays.

Well I cannot believe another month as gone by and we're almost at Christmas holidays! School has been out since the end of November and the Superintendent took the oppotunity at the end of the school year to gather all the teachers and directors from the municipality of Yucuaiquin to say goodbye to one another for the year and to listen to a presentation from me regarding the mobile library.

We had over sixty attendants among them the Ministry of Education Director for the Department of La Union which is where we are located. He also had a few words to say to the group and was very pleased that our school - Las Marias - has been included in the pilot project for the "EITP" (the inclusive and longer day school model). Mr. Carlos Reyes, the Regional Director for La Union, gave his verbal support for the program including helping us source a kindergarden, some computers (laptops)  for a computer centre, additional funding for at least one if not two staff positions for the school! Although it is not his decision completely, it is nice to know that when it goes to San Salvador (headquarters) for MINED, it will have his seal of approval.

On another note, Modesto (the librarian) and I have been busy coding books including ones donated to use from the school itself. Most of them we have had to clean and some we have had to repair due to damage but we already received training on how to do that in San Juan del Sur last month.

Additionally, I have been sending out some donation requests to some local contacts to receive some furniture for the library and hopefully we will hear about that some time this month.

This is at the end of year meeting of teacher and directors. I was introducing myself to most of them.

This is the group of teachers.

Here I am introducing the project of the "Las Marias Biblioteca Móvil" and showing pictures of our progress.

This is Mr. Carlos Reyes, the Regional Director for La Union speaking to the group. Beside him is 

Mr. Carlos Canales the Superintendent.

Mr. Reyes addressing the group.

Grade nine graduates at the Centre Escolar Las Marias.

These are youth participating in one of the planned workshops for the summer holidays. They are learning to make hammocks.

Another group of kids, youth and even adults learning to make hammocks.

This is another group making use of the various spaces available at the school to learn the craft of hammock making.

There are hammocks being made between each of the pillars of the multi-purpose space at the school.

Our training for the EITP is complete, we will receive our diploma in a ceremony in January and the teachers and I are busy planning workshops and changes for the upcoming school year. I feel very privileged to have been incorporated into the staff and activities of the centre. I was even invited to hand out graduation certificates during the graduation ceremony for students leaving the school and going on to high school.

The first few workshops offered will be during the summer holidays. As you can see from the pictures above,  children, youth and adults will be learning the craft of hammock making. Many of the grade nine graduates you see in the picture will not go on to high school because for high school and university the parents are the ones who have to pay all of the cost for uniforms, school supplies, school fees, transportation, food, etc. The high school is a 60 minute walk away or a fifty cent bus ride away (each way). When parents who work doing odd jobs for others earn at most $12 dollars a day, when there is work, these costs become a barrier for continued education for these children. As such some of the workshops planned for the holidays and the new school year are aiming to teach skills which will allow children, youth and adults to earn a living doing something and to gain skills necessary to pursue further education. The mobile library will be coordinating with other rural schools in the area to open these up to most communities of the municipality eventually, although we are beginning in the southern region with six rural communities.

More information on the Escuela de Tiempo Pleno (EITP)

For the past three weeks the staff of the centro escolar and I have been attending full day saturday training sessions on how to transition to the new teaching methodology this upcoming school year. Essentially it is requiring  more community involvement, more resources for the school and a student-led learning philosophy. The National Univerisity of El Salvador (UCA) was contracted to provide the training and facilitate the process. The lending library fits perfectly with this model and is part of the reason that Centro Escolar Las Marias was selected to be the pilot school for the municipality.

The school day will be longer as workshops will be offered to enrich learning and aid students in project-based learning activities which will be implemented. Parents, community leaders and former students will be called on to run and or coordinate some of these workshops thus involving the community in the educational system.

A challenge posed with the model of extended school hours, which we have already heard concerns about, is from parents who are concerned that they will not have children at home as much to help with the home chores and especially during crop peak seasons. As such, the model will be implemented slowly and on a few days per week.