CHILDREN OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES READ FOR PLEASURE

• Books for Children works in communities in the Caribbean county.
• 1,176 children from 13 communities involved with them.

24.11.2014. Managua, Nicaragua. Andrea Núñez-Flores Rey.

Books for Children (BFC) has reached 1,176 children from indigenous and mestizo communities during 2014 in the town of Alamikangban, North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN). The organization, funded by Save the Children, held its assessment in November with the participation of teachers and children of 13 remote communities.

Minerva Wilson, coordinator of the project "Discovering the joy of reading in intercultural and bilingual communities," explains that "this project is running since 2012 and have attend 13 communities with Save the Children. However, from 2015 we will only attend two, which is a great shame because we had very good results."

According to a teacher of the community, "children become interested in reading, and they are being creative and excited. They have also learned to socialize better. For us (teachers), the trainings have helped us to improve communication with students and motivate the love of reading. "

Alamikangban and communities are mostly Miskito ethnicity and do not speak Spanish. Minerva Wilson informs us that "all the BFC team here are indigenous, then we knew how necessary it was to translate books into Miskito language. We were the first in the history of translating children's books into our language. This year, we have translated 50 stories. And we could appreciate the difference: children are enthusiastic about reading. Therefore, they always ask us to bring more books."

On the other hand, one goal of the project was "to institutionalized reading plans. The Ministry of Education (MOE) is including “Reading for Pleasure” in the plans of schools and. In theory, they will spend two hours a week: for half an hour, the student reads the story he / she wants freely; in the next half hour, all students read aloud. However, this does not mean that all teachers are doing it, because there are schools that do not have this plan."

In addition young volunteers support BFC and read once a month to children from three communities. "We live in a community and we have to walk up to an hour and a half to get to some of the schools, but this is worth. We are four brothers and participate as volunteers from a year ago. What we like most is the enthusiasm of the children when you read. In the training, BFC have taught us how to reach children through reading, how to make them want to read for pleasure..." tells Javier, one of the volunteers.

During the evaluation, which was bilingual in Spanish and Miskito, one of the participating groups claimed that "reading for pleasure is encouraging because children are learning to read and feel part of the story. Parents were happy to see how they learn to read better and faster, they are entertained, have fun..."

Minerva Wilson said "it is nice to see that children and adults are learning the indigenous Miskito culture and our roots."