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.

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Facebook: @associacaovagalume/