Provide Quality Education to 15000 Amazon Children

The project started with a visit by the founders to the Brazilian Amazon and has already impacted over than 100,000 children.

Through a cultural experience, a trip to the giant Amazon, the group of friends Sylvia, Laís, and Fofa began Vaga Lume’s story. In their early 20s, they traveled to Pará state to experience the region’s riches and gifted the communities with a small collection of books.

Transformed by the region’s cultural, social and environmental wealth, the trip in 2001 was more successful than they imagined. The books that were given by Vaga Lume positively impacted people in the region. Vaga Lume could not stop.

In 2002, Vaga Lume's Expedition was immersed in the Brazilian Legal Amazon to implement 22 community libraries to boost children’s potential. After 9 months, the friends returned to São Paulo and received countless letters requesting more books.

Vaga Lume made history.

On October 16th, Vaga Lume completes 20 years of history and reaches significant numbers of its work in rural communities in the Amazon, including indigenous communities and quilombolas - the descendants of enslaved population who escaped plantations: there are 86 community libraries spread over nine states in Brazil. Thanks to your support, more than 138,000 books have been donated, more than 4,800 reading mediators have been trained, totaling more than 890 volunteers and more than 100,000 impacted children, youngsters and adults.

Each library is designed and built together with the communities so that the books and materials meet local demands. A team of educators takes care of the entire process of selecting the book collection and training reading-aloud mediators: the basic conditions are settled for the communities’ engagement. 

Vaga Lume’s methodology is based on 5 pillars: book, reading aloud mediation, community management, local culture, and cultural exchange. These five points include providing the necessary infrastructure for the community libraries such as books and shelves; promoting reading aloud mediation training;  supporting the community management; treasuring local culture by registering the community traditions; and promoting the cultural exchange between different regions in Brazil. Vaga Lume’s libraries are a space to share knowledge, a space where children and adults from the community have access to information and entertainment. 

With your support, we have been able to impact the lives of thousands of children.

Follow Vaga Lume to learn more about our projects: 

Instagram: @_vaga_lume_

Facebook: @associacaovagalume/

In recent months, Vaga Lume held two meetings to get closer to those who live in rural communities and municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon.

A tradition in the Net Program since 2015, the Teenager’s Meeting is a moment for the participants from São Paulo to meet. Before the pandemic, it was held in parks or cultural spaces. This year, following the recommendations for social distancing, we held Zoom meetings so that both teenagers in São Paulo and those in the Amazon could participate.

On March 22nd, more than 100 teenagers met to share their knowledge. There was a lot of recitation of poetry, dancing and singing. They showed their talents, introduced themselves and encouraged colleagues who were shy. The Talent Show was a success. According to Manuela:

'In my opinion, the Talent Show is a fun and interactive way to make this meeting, as we get to know a little of each person's personality and hobbies. So, there was always an interesting and curious presentation, getting us more and more involved.'.

And as a high point of the Meeting, the Brazilian influencer, Adriel from “Livros do Dri” instagram, also joined us. He shared his passion for books, literature and the opportunities that reading gave him.

In the following month, we reinvented ourselves once more and held the 1st Vaga Lume Virtual Meeting for Partners and Local Teams with the theme "Library of peoples of the fields, rivers and forests". Special guests, references in literature in Brazil, also participated: the authors Conceição Evaristo, Eliane Potiguara and Itamar Vieira Junior and Professor José Castilho, an activist for Public Policies for reading as a human right. We felt everything up close, hugs, smiles, celebrations, exchanges, everything that makes our network so important.

Even though it was an online event the energy of the network is so strong that it brings the certainty that we are very close, that we have always been and that we always will be. We even forgot, for a moment, the territorial distances. We left once again very hopeful, happy, energized and renewed from the event.