| | |  Entertainment | Books | November 2009 
'Grandma, Will You Read to Me?'
 Marcela Valente - Inter Press Service
go to original
November 12, 2009
 |  | The programme was initially launched in 2001 in the northeastern province of Chaco – one of Argentina's poorest provinces - by the Mempo Giardinelli Foundation. |  | | |
Buenos Aires - "Moving," "rewarding," "therapeutic" are some of the terms used to describe their volunteer work by some of the women taking part in the Storytelling Grandmothers Programme aimed at awakening a love of reading among youngsters from poor families in Argentina.
Every week, each volunteer reads to the same group of children, mainly in public primary schools in slum neighbourhoods. "They are so affectionate, and they wait for us with so much excitement," 73-year-old Federica Orellana, who has been volunteering with the programme since 2004 in the northeastern province of Chaco, told IPS.
"If there's a holiday one week and I don't go, they miss me. Then when I show up they shout 'grandma, grandma!' and chatter to me about everything they've been doing, bring me their little books, and ask me to stay longer than I can," says the pensioner, who adds that the programme revived her own love of reading.
After receiving training, the volunteers are assigned to a school or other institution, where they read the children stories and poetry by authors from Argentina as well as other countries, including both classics and contemporary works.
If there is enough time left after the story, the volunteers end the session with a poem or tongue twister, or read from books that the children themselves bring from home.
The programme was initially launched in 2001 in the northeastern province of Chaco – one of Argentina's poorest provinces - by the Mempo Giardinelli Foundation.
The novels, stories and essays of Giardinelli, a native of Chaco, have been translated into 20 languages. Thanks to the prestigious Rómulo Gallegas international literature award, which he was granted by the Venezuelan government in 1993, and other prizes, the writer, journalist and university professor was able to make his dream of a foundation to promote reading come true.
The Storytelling Grandmothers Programme is the Foundation's highest-profile initiative, and has won a dozen prizes, including awards from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the Organisation of Ibero-American States.
Now it has been selected as one of 13 finalists for the 2008-2009 edition of the Experiences in Social Innovation contest organised annually since 2004 by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), with support from the U.S.-based W. K. Kellogg Foundation, to reward creative solutions aimed at reducing poverty and exclusion with active community involvement.
Five of the 13 finalists - four of which are from Argentina, three from Brazil, two from Peru, and one each from Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay - which are showcasing their projects at the Nov. 11-13 Social Innovation Fair in Guatemala City will win prizes.
If the Storytelling Grandmothers Programme is among the winners, the prize money – which ranges from 5,000 dollars for fifth prize to 30,000 dollars for first – would enable the Foundation to pay for transportation and a place to keep the books used by the volunteers.
The programme has grown steadily over the years, and volunteers now visit some 60 institutions, where they read to a total of 16,000 girls and boys.
They also visit orphanages, children's hospitals, soup kitchens, nursing homes, geriatric wards, institutes for the blind, and prisons.
But schools are still the main focal point of the programme.
"Our activity consists of drawing in senior citizens who love to read stories," the programme's coordinator, Natalia Porta, told IPS.
The volunteers receive training from people who specialise in children's literature, who give them pointers on how to use a bigger voice and different intonations, and larger gestures, for example.
The "grandmothers" are then assigned to a public or private preschool or primary or secondary school in Resistencia, the provincial capital of Chaco, a city of around 400,000 people, approximately 60 percent of whom live below the poverty line.
"They take spiritual nourishment to thousands of children with all kinds of needs, many of whom are indigenous people living in slums on the outskirts of the city," said Porta. "Many of these kids don't have a bed, a nightstand, books or a grandmother who can sit next to them at night to read them a story. Our volunteers help fill that gap," with affection playing a key role in the formula, she explained.
"The Foundation has always conceived of reading as a key element in development, and also as a right," she added.
The aim of the programme is "to foment the tradition of intergenerational reading to children from the earliest ages," said Porta.
But at the same time, it gives a new significance to the role played by older women who have retired from working life and who find a new motivation in their volunteer work with children.
"Some of the grandmothers are over 80, and they participate with enthusiasm," said Orellana. "No one is forcing us to do this. It's a two-way relationship of love: the kids love us, they hug us, the school welcomes us with affection too, and we see that the kids are increasingly interested in reading."
The programme evaluates its impact through surveys in the participating schools every six months. In addition, the Foundation is in touch with the authorities at each school, to supervise the design of the specific schedule and plan. The teachers say the benefit to the children is high, and the "grandmothers" say that it is for them too.
The idea has been replicated in 20 other cities in northeastern Argentina, and in other countries of Latin America as well. Furthermore, the Education Ministry of Argentina, advised by Giardinelli himself, launched its own programme, "Storytelling Grandmothers and Grandfathers", in 2008, with over 700 volunteers who read to 200,000 children in 62 towns and cities around the country.
Many of the children taking part in the programme never, or very rarely, had the opportunity for a member of their family to read to them. But now they have started to ask for stories at home, say those involved in the programme. |
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us