Marists in Buenos Aires launch Mobile Library

To reach more children and young people who lack educational devices and resources in the city of Tigre, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Marists of the San Marcelino Champagnat Community Education Centre have created a mobile library, which distributes books, teaching materials, birthday cakes and hope to children in the surrounding area.

Here, the Marists of Argentina (Cruz del Sur Province), explain how the project came about:

“During the pandemic, the books are in the C.E.C. lacking meaning as they remain immobile, unread. Reading from childhood brings countless capacities. Therefore, we decided to overcome the “distance” and create the mobile library. It is a different way of inhabiting the neighbourhood, of communicating with the families, of recovering complicit looks with the children. By being part of the centre, the children, as well as their families and neighbours in the neighbourhood, take on the responsibility of returning the books once they have finished reading them. Reality transforms. So must education.  The ‘changuito’ (trolley) that becomes a library, the book that travels through the neighbourhood, the community that participates.

Literacy is a transversal axis in the Buenos Aires Community Education Centre. Given the impossibility of being present among the children, we prepared didactic material. These are tools-games that are given to the families to continue with the literacy process. In this case we gave them an alphabet to colour in, we recycled plastic lids with the letters of their names and a domino of syllables. Our idea is that this process happens through play. Beginning to recognise the letters, their sounds and explore different combinations with playful proposals, makes for pleasant and enriching moments for the children in this complex context. That is why we welcome all kinds of books that provide tools, that encourage creativity, freedom, empathy, criticism, love and what we don’t know yet”.