Reading Village

Colorado Premiere of Granito: How to Nail a Dictator at BIFF 2012

Just two weeks ago the ex-dictator of Guatemala, General Efraín Ríos Montt, was ordered to stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity and has been placed under house arrest. The ruling was a victory for the relatives of those killed in Guatemala's 36-year civil war which includes families in communities where Reading Village works. After thirty years of immunity for Ríos Montt and years of work by human rights advocates, forensic scientists and Mayan survivors of the Guatemalan genocide, justice is finally in sight.

Among the overwhelming evidence collected to present a case against Ríos Montt wsa footage from the film Granito: How to Nail a Dictator. Reading Village is honored to be a part of bringing Granito to the Boulder International Film Festival 2012 and its Call2Action program. Granito is part political thriller and part memoir, in which the filmmaker, Pamela Yates, transports us back in time to follow the threads of work by a cast of characters joined by destiny and a quest to bring a malevolent dictator to justice. In this award-winning documentary, we are invited to witness the granito, the tiny grain of sand, that each character contributed to this momentous time in history.

Reading Village will present Granito: How to Nail a Dictator with our friends and colleagues at Philanthropiece on Friday, February 17th at 10:00 am at the Boulder Theater. 

Buy your tickets now! And be sure to join us in the Call2Action tent after the film for a panel discussion with Reading Village and Philanthropiece and concrete actions you can take to contribute your own granito to social justice in Guatemala. 

"Granito: How To Nail A Dictator" theatrical trailer from Skylight Pictures on Vimeo.

Happy Holidays!

As you celebrate the holidays I hope you'll join me in raising a glass to our shared success in changing lives in real and meaningful ways:

To Julio, Rosmery and Marcela who graduated from high school this year (a goal less than 10% of youth achieve),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Yeltsin who discovered his gift to teach,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Juana, Teresa, and Ana, first-year reading promoters who found their voices and now radiate self-confidence,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To the one thousand children who adore and eagerly await the teens who read to them each day,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to you for making the world a better place!

Warm wishes to you and yours this holiday season,

Linda

Thank you! And the winner is...

 

Thank you for helping us reach our goal!                                                       And the winner of the Amazon Kindle Fire is…

Beautiful Bookmarks

What a lovely surprise! 32 colorful, handmade bookmarks turned up in the mail this weekend.

They came from the generous hearts of fourth grade students at Temple Har Shalom's Religious School. I didn't even know they were doing this. Apparently they heard about Reading Village from our friends at the Good People Fund. 

Vice Principal Joshua Greenbaum wrote in the letter that accompanied the bookmarks, "We hope that this very small token may serve as a reminder to people all over the world that there is true hope in the power of good deed, or what we call in Hebrew, mitzvot." 

I will take them to the children when I travel to Guatemala in November. Thank you, Har Shalom and Good People! The kids will be thrilled.

Donations Matched on October 19!

Donate HERE on October 19th

And you could win a brand new Kindle Fire

plus your donation will be matched 30%

We now have 30 amazingly talented teen reading promoters gearing up for the new school year in January. Help fund their scholarships and we all win:

1. Everyone who donates $100 to Reading Village on our GlobalGiving page on October 19 will be entered into a drawing for a brand new Kindle Fire. Donations of $150 earn two entries, donations of $200 earn three entries, etc. 

2. All donations (up to $1,000) will be matched 30%. So a donation of $50 becomes $65! 

Donations of every size are significant.

This is the last matching opportunity of the year.

Please mark your calendar, and thank you for your continued support!

 

Sign up for 100 Book Day!

Put reading into action and sign up for 100 Book Day today!

On Saturday, November 26, parent-child teams will set out to read together 100 storybooks to raise money and awareness for Reading Village. 

Spend quality time with a beloved child, jump start or reinforce their love of reading and in doing so make this possible for children in Guatemala who have no books or adult to read to them. 

For more details visit www.100bookday.org. 

 

Katie and Finn enjoy book #97 in last year's 100 Book Day.

They raised over $2,000 for Reading Village last year. 

 

Good News from Rosmery

I just received some good news from the community of Concepcion. Our reading aloud to children is having an important effect that will help them stay in school.

In rural Mayan communities, half of the children fail the first grade and about 75% drop out before completing the sixth grade. (That's not the good news.)

One contributing factor is that these Kaqchikel-speaking children often enter the school system speaking little or no Spanish.

Our reading promoters read aloud to children in Spanish and translate into Kaqchikel to develop vocabulary and aid the children's comprehension.

Here's the good news: Rosmery, one of our third-year promoters, just shared with me that the children who attend her reading activities told her they no longer need the translating. They understand the Spanish.

This is just what we wanted to happen! Children grounded in their native language and literate in Spanish.

Together we are transforming lives through literacy…and it costs very little.

A donation of $20 pays for a child to attend story hour three times a week for a year and provides storybooks to read on his or her own.

Give the gift of literacy to one or more children today,

Linda Smith, Founder and Director

PS Experience for yourself the children's delight of story hour. Join us on a Learning Journey to Guatemala, November 19-26. Click here for more details.

Juan Carlos's Truth

Juan Carlos is not the most articulate of our newest teen reading promoters. He lives in the shadow of a domineering father and his Spanish skills are a bit weak. But I love this kid because what he lacks in eloquence he makes up for with spirit and determination.

Last week when our Learning Journey group ended their time with the teens in a teary and heartfelt closing circle, Juan Carlos's words hit me hard. He very bravely shared with the group, "If it weren't for Reading Village I would not be here. I would be in the field carrying heavy loads of vegetables." And that's the truth. His family would not be able to afford to send him to public school (which in Guatemala is not free), and he would be trapped in the cycle of poverty many never escape.

 

Juan Carlos was not accepted into our program on his first try. But that didn't stop him. And now, despite his difficulties expressing himself, he is nearly always the first to offer an opinion or answer a question during the teens' training sessions.

And each week he grows more and more accomplished at engaging small children in stories. Through our program Juan Carlos is not only discovering a new future for himself but making this possible for the children he reads to.

Keep teens like Juan Carlos in school with a donation today.

 

Donations matched on June 15

During my last visit to the community of Concepción I encountered a small boy walking toward me. It did my heart good to see a book in his hand. The fact that he was carrying it in a plastic bag told me that he wanted to take good care of this precious item.

He had checked out the book from our supply room cum library and was returning it. I asked him if he enjoyed the story, and his face lit up with a big smile. ¡Sí, mucho! I thanked him for taking such good care of the book and told him he could check out another one. At the thought of bringing home another book he was physically overcome with ants-in-his-pants excitement. From my perspective, it just doesn't get any better than that. 

Your donations keep books in the hands of little boys and girls like this, and on Wednesday, June 15, your donations goest even further. GlobalGiving will match 30% of all donations made on our GlobalGiving web page that day only. So, for example, a donation of $50 (10 books) becomes $65 (13 books). 

Mark your calendar. Don't miss this opportunity to expand your impact!

Thank you for all you do to bring the power and joy of reading to children.

Local Leadership Takes Root

I never expected that we'd see it this soon, just two and a half years after beginning in Concepcion, but there it was right in front of me -- the birth of a new generation of leaders in this community.

Sunday, after Daniel and I had wrapped up the training session with our fifteen teen reading promoters, Marcela (one of the teens) told Daniel the group had something to tell us. I have to say I felt a bit nervous as the mood was serious and they all seemed to know what this was about.

Marcela then announced that they all met the day before and formed their own action committee with a president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer. They want to take the first steps toward opening a public library in their community. And by their own initiative they formed this committee in order to make that happen -- with our blessing and promise of support. 

I was so choked up I could barely respond. THIS is what the work is about for me -- the development of local leaders that will create a new future for their own community. 

Please continue your generous support. You are making a difference!