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ARGENTINA:
'Grandma, Will You Read to Me?'
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES (IPS) - "Moving,"
"rewarding," "therapeutic" are some of the
terms used to describe their volunteer work
by some of the women taking part in the
Storytelling Grandmothers Programme aimed at
awakening a love of reading among youngsters
from poor families in Argentina.
Every week, each volunteer reads to the same
group of children, mainly in public primary
schools in slum neighbourhoods. "They are so
affectionate, and they wait for us with so
much excitement," 73-year-old Federica
Orellana, who has been volunteering with the
programme since 2004 in the northeastern
province of Chaco, told IPS.
"If there's a holiday one week and I don't
go, they miss me. Then when I show up they
shout 'grandma, grandma!' and chatter to me
about everything they've been doing, bring
me their little books, and ask me to stay
longer than I can," says the pensioner, who
adds that the programme revived her own love
of reading.
After receiving training, the volunteers are
assigned to a school or other institution,
where they read the children stories and
poetry by authors from Argentina as well as
other countries, including both classics and
contemporary works.
If there is enough time left after the
story, the volunteers end the session with a
poem or tongue twister, or read from books
that the children themselves bring from
home.
The programme was initially launched in 2001
in the northeastern province of Chaco – one
of Argentina's poorest provinces - by the
Mempo Giardinelli Foundation.
The novels, stories and essays of
Giardinelli, a native of Chaco, have been
translated into 20 languages. Thanks to the
prestigious Rómulo Gallegas international
literature award, which he was granted by
the Venezuelan government in 1993, and other
prizes, the writer, journalist and
university professor was able to make his
dream of a foundation to promote reading
come true.
The Storytelling Grandmothers Programme is
the Foundation's highest-profile initiative,
and has won a dozen prizes, including awards
from the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO) and the Organisation of Ibero-American
States.
Now it has been selected as one of 13
finalists for the 2008-2009 edition of the
Experiences in Social Innovation contest
organised annually since 2004 by the United
Nations Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), with
support from the U.S.-based W. K. Kellogg
Foundation, to reward creative solutions
aimed at reducing poverty and exclusion with
active community involvement.
Five of the 13 finalists - four of which are
from Argentina, three from Brazil, two from
Peru, and one each from Mexico, Costa Rica,
Chile and Uruguay - which are showcasing
their projects at the Nov. 11-13 Social
Innovation Fair in Guatemala City will win
prizes.
If the Storytelling Grandmothers Programme
is among the winners, the prize money –
which ranges from 5,000 dollars for fifth
prize to 30,000 dollars for first – would
enable the Foundation to pay for
transportation and a place to keep the books
used by the volunteers.
The programme has grown steadily over the
years, and volunteers now visit some 60
institutions, where they read to a total of
16,000 girls and boys.
They also visit orphanages, children's
hospitals, soup kitchens, nursing homes,
geriatric wards, institutes for the blind,
and prisons.
But schools are still the main focal point
of the programme.
"Our activity consists of drawing in senior
citizens who love to read stories," the
programme's coordinator, Natalia Porta, told
IPS.
The volunteers receive training from people
who specialise in children's literature, who
give them pointers on how to use a bigger
voice and different intonations, and larger
gestures, for example.
The "grandmothers" are then assigned to a
public or private preschool or primary or
secondary school in Resistencia, the
provincial capital of Chaco, a city of
around 400,000 people, approximately 60
percent of whom live below the poverty line.
"They take spiritual nourishment to
thousands of children with all kinds of
needs, many of whom are indigenous people
living in slums on the outskirts of the
city," said Porta. "Many of these kids don't
have a bed, a nightstand, books or a
grandmother who can sit next to them at
night to read them a story. Our volunteers
help fill that gap," with affection playing
a key role in the formula, she explained.
"The Foundation has always conceived of
reading as a key element in development, and
also as a right," she added.
The aim of the programme is "to foment the
tradition of intergenerational reading to
children from the earliest ages," said Porta.
But at the same time, it gives a new
significance to the role played by older
women who have retired from working life and
who find a new motivation in their volunteer
work with children.
"Some of the grandmothers are over 80, and
they participate with enthusiasm," said
Orellana. "No one is forcing us to do this.
It's a two-way relationship of love: the
kids love us, they hug us, the school
welcomes us with affection too, and we see
that the kids are increasingly interested in
reading."
The programme evaluates its impact through
surveys in the participating schools every
six months. In addition, the Foundation is
in touch with the authorities at each
school, to supervise the design of the
specific schedule and plan. The teachers say
the benefit to the children is high, and the
"grandmothers" say that it is for them too.
The idea has been replicated in 20 other
cities in northeastern Argentina, and in
other countries of Latin America as well.
Furthermore, the Education Ministry of
Argentina, advised by Giardinelli himself,
launched its own programme, "Storytelling
Grandmothers and Grandfathers", in 2008,
with over 700 volunteers who read to 200,000
children in 62 towns and cities around the
country.
Many of the children taking part in the
programme never, or very rarely, had the
opportunity for a member of their family to
read to them. But now they have started to
ask for stories at home, say those involved
in the programme. |
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