PROBIGUA
PROBIGUA: Turning the Page on Illiteracy
“Your parents were given arms to fight for the right to be free, today we are giving you books to do the same.”
—Rigoberto Zamora Charuc, founder of PROBIGUA, to a group of Guatemalan school children
Since 1993, PROBIGUA with the assistance of Child Aid and other donors has built, stocked and supplied 26 libraries and 16 computer centers across the country. These libraries, many of which are located in impoverished public schools in rural indigenous communities, serve thousands of children and families annually with books, reading education, after-school tutoring and computer-based learning programs. In some villages, the library serves as the civic center – a place to hold community meetings and events.
In addition to helping to found libraries, PROBIGUA runs the following programs:
Biblioteca Movil/Book Mobile – Rotary International
For those schools without libraries, PROBIGUA operates the only two mobile libraries in Guatemala. The existence of these mobile libraries would not have been possible without the extremely generous support of Rotary International District 5050 of Canada and the United States - a fine example of caring individuals from British Columbia and Washington State partnering to help those less fortunate.
Outfitted floor to ceiling with hundreds of story and textbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias and other children’s resource books, the Bookmobiles travel daily to small rural villages surrounding Antigua, where they park at each school and host a classroom of children for an hour. The two Bibliotecas Movil serve over 1,000 children per week. Click here to go to our Video Gallery to see one of the mobile libraries in action.
Children’s Reading Program
Small wooden replicas of the PROBIGUA bookmobile are filled with books and educational materials and rotated through Highland schools to encourage reading and foster a love for books among the students. Once in the classroom, the teacher can select a book per child from the 300 to 350 storybooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries and textbooks housed inside the wooden bookmobiles, based on the child’s interest and reading level. Since many of the children attending these school have very few toys, the sight of these little buses piques their interest and invites exploration.
Language School
To support its mission, PROBIGUA runs the Academia de Español PROBIGUA , which provides quality instruction to Spanish students of all levels. Proceeds from the school go towards PROBIGUA’s work fighting illiteracy and providing opportunities for education to the children of Guatemala.
