Villa Serrano

Municipal Library Proposal

Project Summary

Location of Project: Villa Serrano, Chuquisaca, Bolivia

Total Project Cost: 35,093.00 Bolivianos, $4,386.63

Implementation Dates: January – April 2007

Project Written by: Peace Corps Volunteer, Sarah Ellgen

The focus of this project is to renovate, enlarge and improve the resources of the community library in Villa Serrano, Chuquisaca. The library will serve as a key resource in an academic environment with high numbers of teachers, students, young people, and professionals. Additionally, the library will serve as a meeting place for educational campaigns to increase literacy in the community.

The project will receive strong support from the educational community in Villa Serrano, which includes the elementary and high schools, as well as a teacher college and an agricultural technical high school. A committee comprised of representatives from key supporting organizations will help determine library functions and operations. The library promises to fill a noticeable gap in the community infrastructure. Peace Corps volunteer, Sarah Ellgen, will work with all relevant institutions to ensure consistent and sustainable use of the library.

BiblioWorks project funds will be utilized for the renovation expenses, purchase of books, materials, furniture, and other library essentials. This municipal library project will be a BiblioWorks “standard library” and will be funded at the Program B level.

The Peace Corps Volunteer will be responsible for coordinating all the necessary activities for the implementation of the library; including but not limited to working with the appropriate institutions including the school district, the Villa Serrano mayor’s advisory board, and BiblioWorks. Ms. Ellgen will also provide monitoring and evaluation reports to BiblioWorks. BiblioWorks will coordinate the shipment of books and other items from abroad to Sucre.

Background information

Villa Serrano at an altitude of 2,152 meters is located about 180 km. west of the city of Sucre in the Department of Chuquisaca. Hills surround the pueblo and the Pescado River passes through the lower section of town. Founded as San Miguel de la Quebrada in 1779, Villa Serrano has a population of about 3,900 inhabitants and is the capital of the province of Belisario Boeto. Belisario Boeto is divided into six districts with a total population of about 15,000. Belisario Boeto is an agricultural community with a variety of crops including beans, wheat, potatoes, barley, corn, peaches, peanuts, peppers, and oregano.

Villa Serrano serves as the commercial hub for the province. Services in the town include a hospital and independent doctors; dental services; internet providers; small shops; a central market; restaurants; and hotels. While the dominant language in some of the outlying communities is Quechua, most residents in Villa Serrano speak Spanish in daily conversations. The predominant religion is Catholicism, while about 15% of the population practices Protestant religions.

Villa Serrano has a number of educational institutions and attracts students province-wide at the high school level, as well as nation-wide for post-secondary education. The elementary school has 492 students and 535 students attend the high school. These 1,027 students include youth from nearby communities who during the week live in dorms and travel home for the weekends. After high school graduation, many students continue their education in cities, such as Sucre, although some continue at the local teacher college. The “Instituto Normal Superior de Educación Alternative” (INSEA) founded in 1965 is a teacher college with approximately 750 students. Specialties within the college are elementary education; and at the secondary level: social sciences, biological sciences, language/communication, and mathematics. Another educational institution, “Centro Educativo Integrado Técnico-Humanístico Acelerado Rural” (CEITHAR), was founded in 1986 as a technical high school where 118 students are currently studying agriculture science.

Villa Serrano is known nationally as being a cultural center of traditional music and dance. A school of fine arts provides weeknight classes of traditional dance and charango and guitar music to local students. A prominent charango artist, Don Mauro Núñez, born in nearby community, lived in Villa Serrano for part of his life and contributed numerous art works to the town, as well as strengthening the tradition of charango music and the “zapateria” dance. Currently, a two-story museum is under construction to display his works, as well as the world’s largest charango, which was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2001. The second floor of the museum will be designated as a meeting space.

Among other traditional holidays such as Easter and All Saints Day, Villa Serrano is a popular location for Christmas as well as an annual charango festival. The festivities for Christmas include choreographed group dancing through the streets from the 25^th to the 28^th of December. The mayor’s office awards prizes for the best dance groups by category. At the end of September, in conjunction with the celebrations for the patron saint of Villa Serrano, Saint Michael, the mayor’s office also hosts an annual charango festival and competition, which attracts contestants throughout Bolivia.

Peace Corps volunteer, Sarah Ellgen, has worked in Villa Serrano since November 2005 as a community tourism volunteer hosted by the mayor’s office. She became interested in improving the current library after observing that while there were frequent visitors to the library, the requested resources were not available. Talking to the current library caretakers, she realized how improved literacy resources would substantially improve the level and quality of education for the large number of local students, as well as help foster intellectual motivations of the out-of-school population.

In addition to other enthusiastic participants, the library project enjoys the strong support of an extremely influential community leader, a member of the mayor’s advisory group, who has a long career of implementing educational initiatives in Bolivia. He, as well as the Peace Corps Volunteer, in conjunction with the Planning Office at the mayor’s office, will be instrumental in forming the library committee and moving forward with the library development.

The designated library space is located about two blocks from the village center. It will be directly opposite the new museum and community meeting space, and next to the Plan International, Inc. – sponsored internet center. The first floor of the building houses the School District office and the second floor is currently empty and used as a meeting space. The meetings that take place here will move to the second floor of the new museum (an anticipated completion date of January 2007). Behind the library building is an open cement courtyard encircled by one-story classrooms that are utilized by the school of fine arts for their nightly music and dance classes. The courtyard also serves as informal after school hang-out where kids play together while the cultural classes occur. This location is ideal for the library because of its proximity to the village center, the constant flow of patrons to the adjacent internet center as well as students attending the nightly cultural classes.

Description of the Need

The large number of students of all ages in Villa Serrano suggests a strong need for a better-equipped central library; according to 2001 census data, about half the population of Villa Serrano is under the age of 20. Currently there is a very small, antiquated library located adjacent to the mayor’s office, with extremely few books. INSEA and CEITHAR also have small, antiquated libraries as well. These scholarly resources fall well below the demand of the community and educational institutions to meet the literary needs of local students and residents.

In addition to supplying educational resources to the school-age students, the library resources will be utilized by adult learners in search of technical resources and recreational reading materials. Plans will also include incorporating a literacy program for adults into the library program to combat the illiteracy rate in the municipality of Villa Serrano, which is about 28% of those over the age of six years old. Currently, the teacher college has an adult literacy program, and the Peace Corps Volunteer will initiate their coordination with the Library Project.

Project Objective and Responsibility

Beginning in January 2006, the Villa Serrano Municipal Library Project will initiate its project activities, to be completed and functional by April 2007.

Responsibilities of the PCV: Plan project with BiblioWorks, write project, compile and attain signatures for the project contracts, maintain contact and present reports of evaluation to BiblioWorks. Ms. Ellgen will also be in charge of giving library training and behavior courses to the students before and after the inauguration.

Responsibilities of the School District: Sign contract to maintain library and assist volunteer with recommendations of project fluidity. The School District is also anticipated to help with the cataloging of books and furniture.

Responsibilities of the Municipality: Hire librarian, sign contract with Banco del Libro, provide space for the municipal library, pay for material transport from Sucre to Villa Serrano, and cover the monthly electric bill for the library.

Responsibilities of BiblioWorks: Provide monetary funding for the purchase of books, furniture, and other appropriate materials. BiblioWorks will also help with the Training Course to library patrons with the help of the PC Volunteer.

Responsibilities of the Librarian: Attend 5 day course in La Paz, open and run library on regular decided schedule, and ensure library rules are obeyed.

Responsibilities of Library Committee: After formation, the committee will have regularly scheduled meetings to oversee library functioning and maintenance.

Project Design and Activity Plan

Types of Books Being Solicited

The current library caretakers indicated the following classifications of books as often requested by library patrons. The types of books which will be solicited will include, but not limited to these.

• Various academic subjects by the publisher Santillano

• Chemistry

• Theater works

• Agriculture

• Music

• Plastic arts

• Biology

• Atlases

• Learning English as a Foreign Language

• Fiction

• Geography

Project Budget

VILLA SERRANO PROJECT BUDGET

(JANUARY – APRIL 2007)

* Could be received as in-kind donations, in the container sent from BiblioWorks to Bolivia.

Monitoring and Evaluation Plan

All documents will be signed by the School District, the Mayor, and the President of the Advisory Board of Villa Serrano by January 2007. The Peace Corps Volunteer will work closely with BiblioWorks and Ms. Sherar as well as the municipality of Villa Serrano and the School District to provide constant support and evaluation of the project. The Peace Corps Volunteer will live in Villa Serrano until November 2007, at which time she is likely to recommend being replaced by a volunteer in the Peace Corps Integrated Education program. The patrons of the library will attend a training course and the librarian will be properly trained by Banco de Libro criteria in La Paz. The library will be registered under the Banco de Libro national library system and will be expected to fulfill the responsibilities of this contract which include (but are not limited to) monthly progress reports to Banco de Libro. The Villa Serrano Library Committee will also be responsible for quarterly reports to BiblioWorks. Finally, a BiblioWorks representative will make semi-annual visits to the community to evaluate project success.

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