|
KIDS’ BOOKS BOLIVIA
A Reciprocity Project
Bilingual Stories Celebrating Life and Culture in Bolivia
http://www.kidsbooksbolivia.org
Kids' Books Bolivia is a series of bilingual children’s books researched and written by undergraduate students on the SIT Study Abroad Culture and Development Program in Bolivia. This reciprocity project contributes to the production of affordable books celebrating Bolivian reality and serves to raise international awareness about Bolivia’s rich cultures and pressing social issues.
In my role as Academic Director of this program, I put a high value on finding ways in which we and our undergraduate college students can give something meaningful back to a country which gives so generously to those of us living here both temporarily and permanently.
I inherited from my mother a love of children’s literature. This is a love I hope I am instilling in my own bicultural children. I spend hours browsing through bookstores in search of books which will affirm and celebrate their Bolivian identity. Beautiful examples of such books do exist, but they are few and far between. Most of the children’s books available are imported, expensive, culturally irrelevant, and inaccessible to the majority of the population. The majority of public schools do not have libraries.
In the spring of 2008, two students produced a bilingual children’s book for their final Independent Study Project, which was one of the most compelling examples of reciprocity I have seen and inspired me to create Kids' Books Bolivia. All of the books in this series are bilingual (Spanish and English) and some are trilingual in one of Bolivia’s 36 indigenous languages. Book topics include daily life and customs of indigenous Quechua and Guarayo communities; how migration affects Bolivian families; children who work in the streets; and how modernization and global warming are changing the traditional cultivation of quinoa, the ancient grain of the Incas.
We have run out of our first edition sample copies and are currently seeking to raise $5,000 to print the second edition of our book series. Your donation will allow us to continue printing copies of our books, all proceeds of which go to subsidize low-cost books and book donations to Bolivian children, schools, libraries, community organizations and literacy programs.
Thank you so much for supporting this project.
|
