Public Mini Libraries

You wake up in the morning and get ready for your day. You've already planned it, and what's ahead it's not new for you. You did it already many times, so you know what to expect. However, after the day is over, you realized how nice is to live and experience new flavours and emotions each time.

In our last report we've told you about the new minilibraries coming. We planned to install 10 more at Rosario city before end of July, and already two are up and running.Together with volunteers from Banco Macro, visitors from US Global Sport Mentoring Program project and Saatchi & Saatchi LA we installed new minilbraries in different parks in Rosario.
At this point, these little houses full of books became a social movement impacting thousands of citizens that enjoy reading and telling stories to their kids in a sunny day at the park. But more amanzingly, is to see every single time that these wooden boxes are uniting and connecting people in ways we couldn't imagine...(well, to be honest we did imagine it, but we needed to see it happen anyway). Girls from rich high schools becoming friends with peers living in shanty towns, american profesionnals making bonds with youngsters from Rosario's districts and girls from 15 years old listening to stories of a woman of 70 years old are only some stories that we witness everytime.

These facts are not just isolated stories with no link between each other. It's the construction of the community feeling that every society needs to progress, to resolve issues and to live happy. Finding things in common with each other, listening, to stand for a moment on someone's else shoes creates empathy and a sense of collaboration, that is urgently needed in Argentina.

Thanks for your support, we are creating social change in bigger scale every month. We are accelerating our impact, and if we keep on getting your support to promote our cause great things will come!

So the day finally came. The one that everyone was telling us about with a clear pessimistic view. It happened, like people told us. And we were ready for it, and made a huge impact with it.

Two weeks ago, one of our minilibraries was vandalized and destroyed. Not even 24hs later we had the local news TV reporter in our front door to interview us. "How are you coping with this terrible situation", he asked us in a tragedy mood. "Terrible? What is terrible about it? This scenario was part of the project, it is just a stage in were we can actually show people how to deal with it and learn about it". The reporter was surprised and admiring our answer at the same time.

Five days later, we were replacing the old minilibrary with one of the spare ones we had for this situations. But more important, we were taking the oppportunity to make a big statement about how to build a better country. Its about not giving up, insisting, getting up after falling, renewing your ideas and values when you its more difficult than ever. And everyone was getting the message. People in social media that are first were angry with vandals were cooling down and telling others 'Dont worry, this is just something we need to learn and pass'. Media coverage was huge, people awareness raised, book donations increased and even new donors joined. What else we can expect?

Coming month we are starting to install 10 more new libraries we have ready for Rosario, together with Banco Macro employees and volunteers. And we are planning for 20 more, but this time in other cities and towns. The minilibraries became an incredible platform to build healthy communities in where people connect with each other and participate in something that belongs to everyone. And this mindset can also be used to address big social problems in the country.

Thanks to your support, we can keep on creating moments and scenarios were people can feel, think and act with the whole country in mind!

Links:

• TV interview on local channel