Finishing up!

Hello! We went out to Pampa Aceituno today to finish the last of the painting. It was so fun! Our newest volunteer, John from the United States, came with us and helped SO much. He is 6’7” and made sure all of the high corners in the library were painted perfectly. Maritza, Matt and Liz finished the murals while I painted chalkboard paint on the old chalkboard. (Thanks to Philly and Sharon for donating the paint!) The library looks great, and is already being enjoyed by all of the students back from vacation.READ MORE

Mamas!

Women in Bolivia are amazing. They are so strong and so smart. I am baffled at the way they can spin yarn around and sew something perfect at any given moment. They have Mary Poppins-sized secret pockets from which they often pull out beautiful creations they are working on. Despite obvious dexterous and artistic advantages, they are still always willing to try something new, silly as it may be.READ MORE

Tidings of Joy

Hello!

Today is a great day. We just welcomed our newest volunteer to the mix, Anthony, from Belgium. He has been in Sucre for mere hours, but is already excited to get started. He will be with Biblioworks for two months (yahoo!) and will mainly be working in Biblioteca 14 enero in Presto. The kids there have been asking to play chess, and Anthony is ready for the challenge. He will also be working on starting a “competitive book club”, challenging different ages of students to compete in the amount of books they can read! We are very excited.READ MORE

I don’t believe in art, I believe in artists. -Marcel Duchamp

Today we piled into a taxi, and though two hours late, we did it. We painted Pampa Aceituno! For those of you who don’t know, Pampa Aceituno is our newest, 9th library, and we are giving it deserved love. Our morning started off painfully slow, realizing, “We don’t have the paint!” and, “We don’t know where the taxi driver is!” but they both arrived and the piling began.READ MORE

The newest BiblioWorks library!

Prep day. Liz, Karen & Erin on our way up to the school. Sometimes we walk, sometimes we hitch a ride on a work truck!

Hola! Karen here – I just wanted to update everyone on all the work that is being done at the Pampa Aceituno school library. This is BW latest library (opened in April 2012) and the one where I will initially be the librarian until the end of October. Hopefully, at that that time, I will be able to pass the job on to one of the teachers. The kids are currently on winter break so we all decided it would be a great idea to surprise them with a freshly painted library! It was a lot of work but we had tons of fun – thanks to the incredible BWs staff (Matt, Maritza, and Liz) and to the amazing cadre of volunteers who helped (Erin, Frances, Carl, and Beth)!READ MORE

Nuestra Feria de Lectura!

Our stand in Tarabuco

So, the last couple of weeks have been pretty slow in the library in Tarabuco, in terms of library users, but we´ve had a “Feria de Lectura” and an attempt at taking an inventory of all the books (we got through about an eighth) to keep us busy!

So on Sunday (1st) I got up at five to meet at the Tarabuco bus stop at seven, as we had an event to run in Tarabuco that morning. The “Feria de Lectura” was originally planned as a multiple-stand event, with the three schools in Tarabuco coming along, which would´ve allowed us to promote the library to hundreds of kids. What we actually got was a stand at the annual gastronomy/textile/agricultural fair. This led to a few challenges: inadequate space to properly set out the activities; lack of children present (most of them were helping their parents to sell stuff); and a general feeling that we were out of place, being probably the only stand not selling things.READ MORE

Feriados and Football

As is so often the way in Boliva, my plans were scarpered by a feriado (public holiday). I would not be going out to Morado K’asa to deliver the second clase de ingles after all. Instead, making the most of my unexpectedly lengthened weekend, I made the trip out to Uyuni for the tour of the salt lakes.

Returning at 4am on the Sunday morning, I only had a few hours in Sucre before turning around and leaving again. At 10:30am the same day, I took the micro to Morado K’asa for the annual football tournament that takes place there, organized by JUSIBA, the youth group who initially requested a library in the village. BiblioWorks had agreed to donate some prizes, so I was going out there to deliver them, and had rescheduled the English class for the Monday.

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Juan y los frijoles mágicos

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Here I am with students at Pampa Aceituno

Hello! I’m Emma and I am currently a senior at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, USA. I have spent the last two months working for BiblioWorks. My job has been twofold: I’ve been grant writing and working in BiblioWorks’ newest library, Pampa Aceituno. Pampa Aceituno is a small school, set high in the hills about 25 minutes outside of Sucre. Sadly I left BiblioWorks, Pampa Aceituno, and Sucre yesterday, so my blog posts will be published from afar but nevertheless– this is what I accomplished in beautiful Bolivia.READ MORE

First Visit to Morado K’asa

To start off with an introduction, my name is Carl Hickson, and I will be volunteering with BiblioWorks for six weeks, splitting my time between the office and the libraries. I am from the UK, and am just entering into my third year at the University of St Andrews, studying International Relations.READ MORE

First day…

My name is Karen MacMeekin and I am a librarian from Boulder, Colorado in the United States. My husband and I have been traveling throughout South America for 8 months and, about 3 weeks ago, we returned to Bolivia to volunteer for 6 months.

On Wednesday, May 30, 2012, I spent my first day of volunteering at Biblioworks. Biblioworks is a not-for-profit organization that has built and equipped 10 libraries since 2005 in the rural villages around Sucre, Bolivia. It’s a wonderful organization that truly believes “literacy and education are critical components for the creation and vitality of sustainable communities and cultures.” The first part of my volunteering service will be to visit all of the libraries that BW has created – my first: La Biblioteca “Virgen de Guadalupe” in Yamparáez.

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Thanks Roxana!

Roxana reading with kids at the literacy fair last month

Roxana Guzman has been working with BiblioWorks for a year and a half. From the first moment she became part of our small team as a university intern, she showed a dedication and energy which is hard to find anywhere. There is not much more to say about Roxana except that she loves life and lives it through making people (espeically children) smile. She is a stage actress, a volunteer at an orphanage for girls, a very well prepared professional and an important part of the BiblioWorks team. For those of you who understand Spanish, she has written a beautiful piece which you can read below. It can’t really be translated into English, but expresses her love and commitment to our mission of spreading literacy and reading in Bolivia.

¡ATRÉVETE!

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First ever literacy festival in Sucre Bolivia

Painting a mural about why literacy and reading are important

The recent literacy festival (Saturday, April 14th) organized by BiblioWorks was a huge success for BiblioWorks and for the city of Sucre. We set out to organize the first festival of its kind, a day to celebrate culture and a day to celebrate literacy and reading. READ MORE

BiblioWorks supports local school

Girls after dancing a traditional Bolivian dance

This year has continued well for BiblioWorks with progress being made on a new project in Pampa Aceituno. This is a small, Quechua community in the municipality of Sucre, a few kilometres outside the city, and BiblioWorks is working there with the Bolivian state-owned petrol company YPFB.READ MORE

Meet our great team of staff and volunteers!

Maritza working hard as always

BiblioWorks has had a very good January. We were excited about this year from the beginning; excited about creating new projects, training more people, providing more learning materials to children, high school students and communities in need. However, most of all we were excited about working together as a team, which has always been our strongest asset.READ MORE

Allen Singleton
Featured Library: Padilla
To be inaugurated in June 2016
BiblioWorks’ 13th library
4 hours from Sucre
Learn More...