Biblioteca Th’uruchapitas and Appalachian State University: Mutual Benefits of Sharing Culture, Resources, and Hospitality Between Two Sister Libraries

Project Strategies

Biblioteca Th’uruchapitas is Bolivia’s first true children’s library, founded by Bolivian educator and author Gaby Vallejo. Along with a group of seven founding members that proudly bear the title Mujeres Peligrosas (dangerous women) due to their progressive ideas about education, Vallejo provides library and educational services to the children and youth of Cochabamba, Bolivia. Biblioteca Th’uruchapitas is not limited to a defined space that contains books for children, but is a network of volunteers that engages with local schools, neighboring public libraries, non-profit organizations, and the general public.¹ Biblioteca Th’uruchapitas’ many projects include “La Ronda,” loaning books to public-school teachers who, in turn, loan them to students; and “Para No Estar Solos,” offering speech, reading, writing, and art sessions in conjunction with Centro de Apoyo Integral Carcelario y Comunitario (CAICC), a non-profit program for the children of inmates at the women’s prison near Cochabamba.

In 1998, Linda Veltze, a library science faculty member at Appalachian State University, met Vallejo and together they formed a partnership between Biblioteca Th’uruchapitas and Appalachian State. This partnership was formally designated as a Sister Libraries Program by the White House Millennial Commission in 2000. The original intent of the partnership was to get sorely needed children’s books to Bolivia, but it soon became clear that the program offered additional benefits to both Th’uruchapitas and Appalachian State. In 2001, a group of study-abroad students from Appalachian State’s Department of Human Development and Psychological Counseling agreed to carry donated books to Bolivia in their backpacks, eliminating the need for costly postage. Upon their return, the students were markedly impressed and transformed by their experience with Biblioteca Th’uruchapitas. They were deeply moved by the dedication of Vallejo and the Mujeres Peligrosas, who often take public buses to local schools, transporting boxes of books to distribute to teachers. The students developed a new understanding of the importance of reading and literacy when they witnessed the tears of Gaby and other Th’uruchapitas founding members upon receiving so many new and beautiful books.

After this first student trip to Bolivia, the focus of the partnership changed to a broader mutually beneficial exchange of opportunities. Appalachian students and faculty gained a great deal from interaction with another culture and group of devoted volunteers. The partnership began to draw interest and involvement from Appalachian State graduate and undergraduate programs, the University Libraries, the local community, and K-12 schools throughout North Carolina.

Required Intercultural Skill Set

Intercultural skills central to the success of this Sister Libraries Program are the ability to recognize and respect the personality and culture of each country. The partnership has been built on the exchange of information in order to learn each other’s stories, customs, and cultural practices. Participants recognize the importance of understanding the reality of the other in order to create shared successful projects and support, implement, evaluate, and maintain them. Robert Sanders, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at Appalachian State and frequent faculty leader for service projects in Bolivia, emphasized the importance of communicating with Biblioteca Th’uruchapitas to understand the reading preferences of educators and young readers in Bolivia: “We ask students to collect books to donate to the Biblioteca, but we don’t always know what they want or need. Often, we purchase or collect books that our own students enjoy, but may not be appreciated by Bolivian children due to cultural references unique to American life. We need to find ways of being more sensitive to the specific needs and interests of the children in Bolivia who will read these books.”

For the partnership to succeed, the leaders had to devise creative methods to communicate in Spanish and English. The key players drew on their language skills and developed a process in which individuals write to each other in their native languages. Vallejo, Veltze, and others have sufficient knowledge of the second language to understand what is written. This process allows individuals to...