Fondacio in Chile – Huechuraba – Biblioteca Los Almendros

Through socio-cultural activities and located in a vulnerable neighborhood in the north of Santiago, the Library seeks to participate in the training of actors of social change in the midst of its environment.

Chile is among the most unequal countries in the world and one of the five most unequal countries in Latin America. This reality is present in a very concrete way in Huechuraba, a town north of Santiago where Fondacio’s headquarters in Chile are located. Here, low-income neighborhoods border high-income areas and a business town. The Library was born in 2002 at the intersection of these worlds. This location not only makes it possible to operate as an actor in the social development of a neighborhood that stands out for its educational and cultural poverty, but also to be a meeting place for different audiences.

The Biblioteca Los Almendros welcomes children, young people and adults from the municipality to offer an enriching reading experience in a friendly and welcoming space.

It seeks to be a place where groups of all ages meet to develop their talents, their capacities for expression, their creativity and to take advantage of different artistic languages through the many activities on offer. It is about integral education, the formation of creative and solid beings, agents of social change in their environment.

The project also focuses on the promotion of reading, seeking to bring the child and his family closer to the world of books from a playful and meaningful look for the construction of his personality. Create networks with the various institutions of the sector in the pursuit of building a community of reading.

In addition to being a place open to the public, equipped with books and games of all kinds to borrow and with a green space for outdoor activities, the library is a key cultural and recreational body in the sector. Its activities are aimed at different audiences: families, children, teenagers and adults.

It unfolds along several axes:

Readers’ meetings . Support reader development plans of different institutions (kindergartens, schools, special schools…) by telling stories in the premises every week. It also organizes reading meetings for groups of elderly people and adults with disabilities.

Fun and artistic evenings . It opens its doors in particular to children and young people outside their school hours, with working parents, offering a wide variety of activities: storytelling, artistic and audiovisual workshops, music, crafts, theatre, tutoring, games and sports.

Mobile library . Tours around the neighborhood, carrying books in a mobile library, settling in different public places such as fairs and squares in the sector and sharing readings with young and old.

Mass cultural events . Each year, it organizes and participates in several major cultural events, such as the literary picnic.

The Library is a Fondacio project in partnership with the NGO Vidascopio, whose team is made up of foreign volunteers and local volunteers. This team has created an educational network in the neighborhood, with which it works in close collaboration (Las Araucarias, Las Azucenas and Rayen Mahui kindergartens, Las Canteras and El Trigal schools and the Padre Hurtado Institute).

It is also linked to the municipal child and youth network and the local health centre, which is why it participates in fairs and cultural events or services several times a year (book month, women’s fair, the youth …).

In 2018, the Los Almendros library welcomed more than 850 children through its various activities, 150 adults and 500 families living near the site. Year after year, this beautiful project continues to grow!