Since January this year Cinta Baca Aceh has started to open smaller libraries in the villages. The direct benefit of the learning centre and the city libraries for the people in the city has prompted us to initiate the opening of three smaller libraries in three different villages. These three Reading Posts that consist of two hundred books was opened in March and was hopefully intended to help villagers to have access to reading materials. Since the opening of the three Reading posts, the villagers, especially children and students have got a lot of advantages by attending some educational programs and activities we hold at the Reading posts. Last month, some of the activities we hold included teaching alphabet for little children and helping them to read. Competition for making good summary from the books that being checked out from the Reading Posts was held for junior high and elementary school students.

After the basic model of this 5 week Family Reading Program was developed and taught to the staff at the last national staff meeting, it was then tested out in one reading post near Bogor. Here's a brief report from someone who went along and observed:

 “We drove out to the village where the first reading post had opened the last time I was here, to do a trial run of the Family Reading Program there. It was very emotional for me to see the facilitator here working on this, explaining, modeling and having the mothers practice reading a book to their children. There were 9 mothers there with their children, all sitting in a small room with many more at the door. These mothers all said they had taught their children at home but none had read a story to them. Ann had a child come sit on her lap and read the little book to her with expression, pointing to the words and pictures and enjoying the experience together. She then passed out books to all the mothers and they put a child on their lap and read to them just like Ann had done. They were all totally engrossed in the experience. Just imagine watching this for the first time! I will never forget it!”