For 6 years, Open Book has brought reading to tens of thousands of low-income children in Mexico, and although the pandemic limited its actions during 2020, the altruism it generates did not stop and continues strongly this year.
This is how from August 20 to November 20 Librerías Gandhi, the company behind this social program, will have an open donation campaign to continue with this project and expand its scope.
In an interview with VANGUARDIA, Alberto Achar, commercial director of Gandhi, commented that due to the health contingency last year they did not carry out activities such as training for promoters of reading, but they did carry out the donation campaign with the intention of adding the proceeds with what happened this year to “be able to incorporate more schools to the program, to the social project and to be able in some way to maintain the 110 schools with which we work,” he said.
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“We now have a number where we believe we can incorporate the schools that we already have about 30 more, that is a bit the goal we are having, which would be great, because we could train 60, 70, more teachers,” he added about the possible expansion of the program, “that would be an incredible number, because today the program, after 6 years, thanks to the support of more than 240 thousand readers who believed in the project and, on the other hand, all the collection that is made to Similar level and that transforms into more than 22 thousand who are in constant radiation of reading and we have been able to bring more than 44 thousand books to these 110 schools. So somehow, although the pandemic forced us to suspend training and joining new schools, it allows us to do it with the money we raised and with the support of the people this year. “
He also explained that in its beginnings Open Book began with only three schools, which became 26 for its second year, a number that has been growing little by little and where each of the participating institutions becomes an agent that can function in an efficient way. more or less independent when it comes to promoting reading.
“Somehow, once the program is launched in each of these schools, each one is promoting it and turning their teachers into reading promoters. But we are trying at the moment to be in contact, for some time, with all these schools to see what needs are emerging, to follow up on them and that continues to grow from there, “he said.
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Likewise, he pointed out that although the numbers reflect a part of the project’s results, they are also aware of what it has caused at the social level, in a more qualitative way, and the general impact on children and their contexts.
“When we always talk about a social project we talk about the impact in terms of numbers, but in the end, the real impact is the stories that happen after this incorporation into the reading of each of the children. So we have found reading, in addition to this transforming power, this reading that gives children a different communication capacity, to understand themselves and to be able to function in their environment, which allows them to see a better world of that marginalization in which he is, then from there many changes begin to happen in his life, ”he shared.
“A girl told us that after reading came to her house and she asked her father to read to her, she no longer beats her. We understood that the relationship he had with his father in this marginalization was through beatings, this patriarch who relates to his children in that way, and when he came to say ‘hey, dad, can you read me?’ life of the girl. The project not only goes to children, but ends up affecting the homes and lives of all people, “he added.
In addition, the curatorship of the hundreds of thousands of books that have reached these schools is in charge of the IBBY foundation, considered by Achar as one of the most important allies of the program.
“It is a foundation that has been dedicated for more than 40 years to promoting reading in children and young people. It is an ally of the program because they have worked over time and each year they launch a list with a very good curation of which books are recommended for children of that year, so they are our allies in terms of bibliography and literature. training of all these teachers, because they have a very well structured training course to turn a teacher into a promoter ”, he concluded.
Donations can be made in any of our 43 bookstores throughout the Mexican Republic, through gandhi.com.mx, and all the information about the project is on the Open Book website.
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