Reading is always good. It helps fight boredom, sparks creativity and empathy in those who choose to delve into the words, so no one would dare question it is always good for children to grow up reading.
Throughout the month of September 2015, The Voice of Guanacaste and the Fischel pharmacy chain joined forces to encourage the habit of reading by promoting the Crecer Leyendo (Grow Up Reading) campaign in more than 70 Fischel locations across the country. The campaign brought children’s books to communities that normally have a hard time obtaining them.
The campaign will donate more than 3,000 books to schools in Tilaran, Liberia, Nicoya, La Cruz, Hojancha, Abangares and Santa Cruz.
It was very simple: Every pharmacy had copies for sale of the complete collection of the stories of Mi Tía Panchita (My Aunt Panchita). Customers could buy as many as they wanted and leave them in the pharmacy. These books would then be distributed to public schools in Guanacaste thanks to the partnership with The Voice of Guanacaste.
In late January, The Voice started a campaign on its social networks inviting schools throughout the province to write in to obtain a donation of books, to create reading nooks or improve what their libraries have to offer.
All of the schools that wrote were given the right to a batch of books in proportion to the number of students enrolled in the institution. Thanks to this social networking dynamic, we found homes for 500 of the more than 3,000 books collected.
For the rest of the books, officials from Guanacaste’s four regional administrations of the Ministry of Public Education were contacted to get the name and address of institutions that do not have children’s books. In March, The Voice team start traveling all over the province to deliver complete collections of the stories of Mi Tía Panchita.
Now there are many schools in the mountains of Nicoya and Santa Cruz and in the plains of Abangares and Cañas that enjoy the stories of Cucarachita Mandinga (the little cockroach) and Tío Conejo (Uncle Rabbit).
If you know of a school that needs children’s stories, please contact us at [email protected].
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