Advertisement
Published: June 26th 2015
Edit Blog Post
Day 28 The Tatumbla experience – Thank you Riecken Community Libraries
Distance driven today: none
Cumulative distance driven: 6,873 miles / 11,061 km
Today’s trip (in a car): Tegucigalpa to Tatumbla and back, Honduras
Visits to community libraries with donated Kindle e-readers: 1
Today we spent all day in Tegucigalpa, together with
the Riecken foundation. This is a foundation whose mission it is to build and maintain community libraries in Guatemala and Honduras. They are currently operating 65 community libraries across Guatemala and Honduras, and we are very happy to have donated Kindle e-readers to the foundation to support its mission of increasing literacy in these two rather poor countries. In the morning, two of Riecken’s local representatives, Dazil and Franklin, picked us up, and we drove to one of the community libraries, located in the city of Tatumbla. Our goal was to visit the Tatumbla community library, and to see a few of the Kindle e-readers we donate last winter to Riecken in action.
The Riecken foundation CEO Bill Cartwritght has been generous enough to offer us his house while we are visiting Tegucigalpa and the Tatumbla library. For two nights, we got to
stay in a really beautiful house, in the most central part of the Honduran capital, overlooking the presidential palace, which is literally 200m/600ft away! Bill’s maid even took care of our laundry; what a luxury when travelling on a motorcycle adventure tour like ours.
Before I share the amazing experience we had at the Tatumbla library today, it may be worthwhile going through some facts about why the Riecken foundation is spending time and energy to build community libraries here, and why we naturally chose to support them with e-readers. I am quoting from the Riecken website:
“
Guatemala is a diverse country with a population of 14 million and possibly the lowest literacy rate in Latin America – around 70%! (MISSING)It is even less in rural areas, especially for women and girls. With over 20 different indigenous languages spoken, and with Spanish often being the second language, teaching reading is challenging.”
“
Honduras is mostly rural with over half of the population living in remote sparsely populated areas. About 75%!o(MISSING)f Honduras’ 8 million citizens live in poverty, meaning they are unable to meet their most basic needs. As in Guatemala, the quality of public education suffers
due to ongoing labor and political strife that shortens the school year to only a fraction of the required 200 days of classroom studies. The community centers that Riecken libraries have become, wherever they are located, offer opportunities for both individual and community development.”
When we got to the
Tatumbla library in the morning, the entire librarian staff of 3, plus all the local village volunteers, were already expecting us! We got a warm welcome and they showed us around in the building. It was clear that the library was not only a place to go to for reading books, but that is also served as an active community center. One of the displays inside the library, which the teenagers in the village had produced, was about teenage pregnancy and the effects it has. Another project was about depression and how it strikes the poor members of the community who cannot meet their most basic needs. The librarians and volunteers were clearly engaged in the discussion around these two projects, and it was very touching to hear their stories about how a simple reading center could have such a positive effect on the local community, especially for the children
and teenagers.
There is no question in my mind that the work that the Riecken foundation does with the libraries actually does change the life of people in Guatemala and Honduras, and I feel very proud to make a small contribution, through the donation of Kindle e-reades, to help support their mission. Of those that do make it to a local Riecken community library in Guatemala and Honduras, 61%!l(MISSING)ive on less than $100 per month. If you are reading this blogpost, I would highly encourage you to go to the
Riecken website and make a small donation (just click the big orange ‘donate’ button on the top right). Any amount, no matter how small it is, will help increase literacy in this region, and thereby lift especially young people from poverty and give them a chance for a better life and future. I for sure plan to extend our Kindle e-reader donation program to Riecken, once I am back in the US by the end of this summer.
Perhaps the most memorable moment from today’s visit was when, Dazil and Franklin from the Riecken foundation introduced me to one of the reading clubs consisting of 7 middle school
students. All students had been given an hour off from their class in the Tatubla school, so that they could come to the library and meet me and Zoe, and get introduced to the Kindle e-readers. I was asked to hand over a box with a device to each student, and to then demonstrate how to use the e-reader and to start reading a digital book. The children were clearly fascinated by the new electronic books in their community library, and started exploring them immediately. We spent about an hour with the children, watching them explore the devices, giggle, be amazed by the digital books that the Riecken foundation had already loaded on them, and generally see their happy faces smile. Before we left the library, all children and librarians gave us hugs, and thanked us for the donation of the e-reders.
The whole Tatubla library experience has been a very gratifying one for Zoe and me, and it is fair to say that today, we made a small but important step towards helping increase literacy in Honduras. I really look forward to expanding the Kindle e-reader donation program to cover many more of Riecken’s libraries.
PS For
more info on what the Riecken community libraries do in Guatemala and Honduras see
&feature=youtu.be">this video on YouTube.
PPS After an hour of phone calls, and visits to a couple of major motorcycle importers here in Tegucigalpa, we came up empty when it comes to finding a replacement adjustment screw for the clutch handle L The closest authorized BMW motorcycle dealership is in San Salvador, which is not on our route. We therefore decided that we will rather try to make it to San Jose in Costa Rica on Saturday afternoon, where there is a BMW authorized dealership that can hopefully help us. The paperclip will have to stay in place for two more days.