By Jessica Kibrit | From the expedition report of Aline Calahani and M
We began our trip in São Paulo (Brazil´s largest city), and flew to Manaus (the industrial capital of the Amazon). From there, we took a two-hour flight to Carauari. From Carauari we took a five-hour boat ride up the immense Juruá River to the poetically-named community of Nova Esperança (or “New Hope” in Portuguese). We couldn´t have asked for a better reception. We brought a box filled with brand new children´s books. The moment we opened the box, children began searching through the new books, and lined up to borrow them and bring their favorites home for a few days.
Nova Esperança truly lives up to its name. People with a light in their eyes, children with love in their hearts and their actions. They are the reason that all of us – the Vaga Lume education team and local volunteers – do this work.
While we were in the community we spent time with Luciene Lima da Silva, who learned read-a-loud techniques with Vaga Lume on a previous visit. She told us that our work together has been so powerful that there are five-year-olds in her community that have taught themselves to read! She said they learned through constant contact with the books, with read-a-loud, and with the library space.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
