Africa-Press – Cape verde. The councilor for Culture of the Praia City Council said this Sunday that the Praia municipality wants to take the community libraries project to the neighborhoods, contribute to increasing literacy and improving the reading ability of young people and students.
Câmara da Praia wants to combat the literacy deficit in the municipality with the creation of the community libraries project
Jorge Garcia provided this information to the press, on the sidelines of a guided tour by the group of writers, who are participating in the XI Meeting of Portuguese Language Writers, in the municipality of Ribeira Grande de Santiago.
In summary, he said that the participants left the meeting “extremely satisfied” with the results achieved, highlighting that this year expectations exceed those of the X edition, which also took place in the City of Praia.
“This year I am much more satisfied than with last year’s edition, I think we actually managed to make a leap both through the proposal of themes, which took place under the central motto, “Portuguese language expression of freedom, democracy and municipal development”, and through quality of the panels presented, but also due to the massive participation of the public, including good participation from secondary schools and universities”, he stated.
Asked about the recommendations that came out of the aforementioned meeting, he said that the observation made is that there is still a deficit in literacy, considering, in this sense, the importance of this generation having a greater taste for reading and implementing some programs aimed at combating the reading deficit in the County.
In order to resolve this concern, the councilor highlighted, the Praia City Council wants to invest in the installation of community libraries in different neighborhoods of the capital as a way of catapulting the lack of literacy to another level.
“The Praia City Council is concerned with investing in the installation of community libraries, as a way of improving the reading ability of young people and students. At this moment, the project is already being implemented and I can say that we already have community libraries installed in Alto Safende and São Martinho Pequeno, but soon we will have a community library in Vila Vitória”, he informed.
He recognized, however, that it will be a challenge to achieve these objectives taking into account the importance that smartphones and new communication technologies have had and the way in which they have been used, hence the importance of investing in an appealing plan that has positive impact on students’ lives so that physical books are read more.
“To make this project more appealing, we are currently considering the activity plan for greater profitability of these libraries and also promoting an expansion of these instruments, which we believe to be fundamental, without also highlighting the effort being made by the Government through the National Reading Plan”, he asserted.
The Culture councilor highlighted, on the other hand, the need to promote literature and that one of the mechanisms could be the launch of the literary competition at municipal level, which could be carried out later this year and at the latest at the beginning of next year.
The XI Meeting of Portuguese Language Writers (EELP), took place from the 19th to the 22nd of October, in the City of Praia, and had the general theme “Portuguese language, expression of freedom, democracy and municipal development” and a tribute to Amílcar Cabral and the writer David Hoppfer Almada.
The event brought together writers and researchers from all Portuguese-speaking countries and, for the sixth time, took place in the City of Praia, organized by the Union of Portuguese-Speaking Capital Cities (UCCLA) and the Praia Municipal Council (CMP), in partnership with Academia Caboverdiana de Letras (ACL) of the Sociedade Caboverdiana de Autores.
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