By Laura Mick | Project Leader
We have reached the final chapters of 2025 with many reasons to celebrate. Nothing we have built would be possible without you—who support Vaga Lume. This story is collective, and you are part of it.
Actions in the field
Throughout the year, hundreds of volunteers continued to bring access to books and reading through listening, presence, an care. To further strengthen this vibrant network, we trained new reading mediators.
Even at a distance, we stayed connected. At the Virtual Volunteer Gathering, we explored together into reflections and exchanges about books, reading, and territory, reaffirming the power of meeting and dialogue as the foundation of our work.
We also celebrated the completion of library renovations, ensuring accessibility and enhancing reading spaces so they can be ever more welcoming to their communities.
New libraries: seeds that keep growing
The year 2025 was also a year of planting new seeds. Three rural communities in Uarini (AM) and two in Barreirinhas (MA) received new Vaga Lume libraries, expanding access to books and reading in territories where such access remains a challenge.
Today, we are a network of 97 community libraries and five new reading spaces currently in development.
To nourish this network, we curated a new collection in which Indigenous, Black, and Amazonian voices took center stage. Each Vaga Lume library received 150 new titles, strengthening the diversity and representativeness of the books that reach the communities.
Cultural exchange: bridges between territories
The Net Program continued to bring together young people from the Amazon and São Paulo through a powerful cultural exchange. Letters, conversations, discoveries, and dreams crossed paths throughout the year, with environmental themes as a guiding thread. This sensitive exchange strengthens bonds, broadens horizons, and inspires new ways of seeing the present and the future.
COP30: voices from the Amazon in dialogue with the world
In the year when the Amazon took center stage in global attention, Vaga Lume created and occupied spaces so that community voices could be heard during COP30, the UN Climate Conference.
Young participants from the Net Program in São Paulo took part in a UN simulation—an inspiring exercise in imagining possible futures.
During Amazon Week, we mobilized communities through reading circles, dialogues, and actions focused on sustainability and care for the territory.
In Belém, young people from Vaga Lume libraries participated in a panel on climate challenges at the Casa das ONGs and marched for climate justice alongside activists and Indigenous peoples.
We also celebrated the opening of a new reading space in Boa Vista, Castanhal (PA): a library built with certified wood and equipped with solar panels donated by 3e Soluções.
During COP30, we launched the manifesto “Voices of Youth for the Amazon,” created through an exchange between young people from the Vaga Lume libraries in Castanhal and teenagers from the United States who nurture strong emotional ties with Brazil.
Moving forward together
Everything Vaga Lume builds is born from the meeting of many hands, those who read, those who donate, those who share, and those who dedicate time, care, and dreams.
Our deepest and most heartfelt thanks to every donor who continues by our side, helping build pathways toward a reading Amazon.
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