We (Jenna & Steph) began our journey with Nicaragua in the summer of 2008 as we joined our church on a mission trip to the small rural community of Ameya in the northern part of Nicaragua. As we spent the week sleeping on the floor of the their church and being part of the community of Ameya, we fell in love the the kids and youth as we learned they only attend school through the 6th grade. We left Ameya promising we would return! And the following summer we planned a 5 week trip where we would visit our friends in Ameya and spend time with Jane Mirandette on the western coast of Nicaragua in San Juan del Sur.
Jane started the first lending library in Nicaragua ten years ago and has helped start dozens of lending libraries since that time. Previously the only libraries were in the capitol of Nicaragua and books could not be checked out of the library. In the summer of 2009 Jane sent us to a library conference in Granada where we witnessed the empowerment of Nicaraguans running small grass roots libraries in their impoverished communities. We heard the stories of change and improvment in communities all across Nicaragua and we decided that day this was how we wanted to help Ameya. Jane had always wanted a library for Ameya and so all we had to say was we were willing to financially commit to this project!
In August of 2009, after we had been given enthusiastic permission from the community of Ameya, we began planning with Jane the start of the library. Our goal was to start the library with 1,000 books... so we started saving and raising support through our friends and family. Jane organized the purchase of books, supplies, bookcases, tables, chairs...etc. And we were able to make the trip to Ameya in March of 2010 to set up the library, train those that would be working in the library and celebrate the inauguration! We chose the name Biblioteca Esperanza y Gracia (Library of Hope & Grace) so as to reflect our dream that it would be a place of refuge for the people and as well as a center for opportunity and hope for the community! Through the support of our church, extended and immediate family, friends, neighbors, our students in San Antonio, and Jane we reached our goal of opening the library with over 1,000 books.
The library offers a variety of books for all ages. There are four staff members, trained by Jane's library staff from San Juan del Sur, that are paid a monthly salary. There is a complete set of textbooks that match the curriculum of the primary school they attend so students can do homework in the library! Jane has visited the library numerous times and it has become a center of activity for the community with the library filled with students doing homework, young children doing crafts, and even a group of girls practicing a dance routine!
Our hope was that the youth could enhance their education, which we now see happening! Our other hope was that it could be a resource of continuing education for those not in school anymore and that it would reach more than the immediate community of Ameya. And so the growth of the library in order to meet the needs of all community members is our next project. Recently the pastor of the community asked if the library could become a mobile library, which follows the model of Jane's orginal library. This means the staff would take books to three different schools in the area where students and teachers would be able to check books out for weeks at a time. Mobile libraries are the easiest and most efficient ways to get books in the hands of the kids in rural communities as it is not feasible to start a new library in every community.
The most exciting part of this new idea is that the the Nicaraguans have already taken ownership in the library and are leading the way in reaching out to serve their own! So our goal now is to start this mobile library with 300-400 books as well as grow the main branch! We are thankful for the support we have received over the past year as the total costs for the start up of the library were over $5,000. This next set of books will be close to $1,000 and it costs $50/month to sustain the library, but that amount will increase when the mobile project begins to cover the additional cost of transportation to the surrounding schools and the increased salary of the staff. If you would like to be involved in this project read below on ways you can be involved!
This video documents the start-up of the library, the organization of books, the transformation of the building used for the library, the inauguration day, and the utilization of the library. We were blessed with a few people that gave their time and money to help us in March (Adam Wisely, Deanna & Tom Gregory, Ingrid Olson & Jane Mirandette)!
