Provide Quality Education to 15000 Amazon Children

Dear supporter,

As you might have heard about, Brazil has a very special holiday in its annual calendar: the Carnival.

It is a week-long party, considered as the Mardi Gras of the southern hemisphere, which includes live music, street performances, dancing, floats, costumes, food, beverages and… BOOKS! Why not?

As we told you before, the community libraries of Vaga Lume in the Amazon are considered as a very important part of the community, a facility that everyone has access to and that gains life with its volunteers.

In this Carnival (and it has happened before in other communities), the Local Team of the Breves (Pará state) organized the so called “CarnaLeitura” which mixes Carnival and reading in a very fun event.

The volunteers took the mobile shelves with them to the middle of the square, invited all the kids, youngsters and adults that crossed their way, and created a “parade” of reading mediation and lots of costumes!

Vilma, the volunteer who organized the event, published a testimonial on her Facebook: “while representative of Vaga Lume in Breves, I would like to thank all the local partners and volunteers, which contributed to the accomplishment of this amazing event that was designed with all my heart. According to scholars, when reading is pleasant, it is possible to develop imagination, to increase vocabulary and to get involved in this magical world called literature! That’s the point of the event ‘CarnaLeitura’ and of all our work as volunteers at Vaga Lume”.

It is worth saying that with your support, Vaga Lume was able to train Vilma and more than one thousand other volunteers as reading mediators that are in the Amazon promoting reading in every opportunity they find.

Thank you for all!

Vaga Lume Team.

Dear supporter,

In this report we will share with you the experience of our last meeting of volunteers in 2016!

Firework, music, food and hugs: that’s how we were welcomed by Santa Cruz do Tracajatuba I adn Campina de São Benedito communities during the Regional Meeting of Volunteers, held in Macapá (Amapá state) in November, 9^th to 11^th. In each community, the participants of the Meeting would get off the bus with many books in their hands and a big smile on their faces!

The three days of training and exchange of experiences offered to 40 Vaga Lume’s volunteers from the states of Amapá, Maranhão and Pará is a strategy to capacitate volunteers while mobilizing and inspiring the strengthening of bonds among volunteers that promote reading in different parts of the Amazon.

We heard some important testimonials of volunteers, such as Silvia Emanuelli Santos Almeida, from the João Batista rural settlement in Castanhal (Pará state): "In the Brazilian country side, poverty is a rule. The only way we can offer children the right to childhood in this scenario is by reading, by telling stories. So, while there are books and reading mediators in the communities, there will be perspective of a better life.”

By the end of the training, we visited the two communities mentioned where we got in contact with local culture in the dancing presentations and with the history of the communities with models and handmade books.

It was a very inspiring training. For us, bringing people who live in remote areas closer to each other to exchange is a powerful way to spread reading habits all over the Amazon. Don’t you think?

We have only managed to accomplish such moving results with your support! That is why we are here to thank you and to encourage you to keep following our work and sharing your thoughts and suggestions with us.

Thank you!

Vaga Lume Team

Links:

• See our website for more information!