Kids' Books Bolivia

Readers:

From time to time we also try to use this Blog space as a way to bring attention to other Bolivia-related projects that we think are especially noteworthy and valuable. In this post I want to let our readers know about a terrific project that comes from our friends at the semester abroad program from the School for International Training. The SIT students who come to Bolivia are great and every year they produce everything from reports to videos to capture their experiences.

Most recently, a group of especially creative students turned their time here into a series of children's books, and a program to help get those books for free into the hands of Bolivian children. Kids' Books Bolivia is a great project. Here's a post from one of SIT's co-directors, Heidi Baer-Postigo. I encourage you to have a look!

Jim

Kids' Books Bolivia

Kids' Books Bolivia is a series of bilingual children’s books researched and written by undergraduate students on the SIT Study Abroad Culture and Development Program in Bolivia. This reciprocity project contributes to the production of affordable books celebrating Bolivian reality and serves to raise international awareness about Bolivia’s rich cultures and pressing social issues.

In my role as Academic Director of this program, I put a high value on finding ways in which we and our undergraduate college students can give something meaningful back to a country which gives so generously to those of us living here both temporarily and permanently.

I inherited from my mother a love of children’s literature. This is a love I hope I am instilling in my own bicultural children. I spend hours browsing through bookstores in search of books which will affirm and celebrate their Bolivian identity. Beautiful examples of such books do exist, but they are few and far between. Most of the children’s books available are imported, expensive, culturally irrelevant, and inaccessible to the majority of the population. The majority of public schools do not have libraries.

In the spring of 2008, two students produced a bilingual children’s book for their final Independent Study Project, which was one of the most compelling examples of reciprocity I have seen and inspired me to create Kids' Books Bolivia. All of the books in this series are bilingual (Spanish and English) and some are trilingual in one of Bolivia’s 36 indigenous languages. Book topics include daily life and customs of indigenous Quechua and Guarayo communities; how migration affects Bolivian families; children who work in the streets; public care of the elderly; labor movements in the mines; and how modernization and global warming are changing the traditional cultivation of quinoa, the ancient grain of the Incas.

All profits from our books will be used to subsidize low-cost books and book donations to Bolivian children, schools, literacy programs, community organizations and libraries.

The goal is that children in the U.S. learn about Bolivia’s rich cultures and pressing social issues, and at the same time Bolivian children will have access to children’s books celebrating and validating their own cultures and identities. The books are also excellent tools for Spanish language learners of any age.

So far, students on our program have produced eight children’s books. We have run out of our sample copies and are now looking for financial support to print up 500 copies of each book in order to launch the program. We are short approximately $3,500 in making this happen.

Your help would mean so much to us! There are three ways that you can support us:

1. Pre-order copies of the children’s books on our website here. They cost $6.99 each or $45.99 for the entire set of 8 books (a $10 savings). They make great gifts!

2. Donate money to “Kids’ Books Bolivia” to support our printing process and future book donations. You can donate here.

3. Help us spread the word! Share a link to this Blog post with others you think might be interested in these books. We would love to get them out to schools, libraries, Spanish classes and bilingual programs in the U.S. If you have suggestions, please email me here.

Thank you so much for your interest and support.

Heidi Baer-Postigo, Academic Director
SIT Study Abroad
Cochabamba, Bolivia