Emily C. Carr was volunteering in our school AMSAI in Haiti which is directed by
Dada Gopalakrsnananda. The library is physically
one room in our school and although it seems a little thing it might
become a good project as in Haiti as it seems there is no public
library at all.
By AMANDA BOROZINSKI
Sentinel Staff
Published originally in The Keene (N.H.) Sentinel and on
Sentinelsource.com: Thursday, January 15, 2009
JAFFREY — When Emily C. Carr of Jaffrey left for Haiti late last year, she brought along some unusual luggage: 230 books. The books represented the first step in a dream that Carr has been pursuing for the past five years: to establish a library in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The idea for a library began in 2004 during her first trip to the country. Carr was traveling with a group of friends, providing medical assistance to low-income citizens in Haiti’s capital city. As a retired kindergarten and 1st-grade teacher, Carr tried to find meaningful ways to help.
After patients were seen by the team of nurses and doctors, Carr would give them soap, shampoo — and hugs.
In the end, the trip proved rewarding, but Carr kept wondering if there was something more she could do.
Nowhere Carr looked — in homes, schools or orphanages — was there anything but volumes filled with text.
No pictures. No bright colors. No animals.
“I had asked the children if they knew what a library was,” Carr said, “and they did. But none of them had ever been to one.”
And that was a real problem, Carr said. “Students, especially at the early stages of literacy, need to have bright, colorful pictures. They need to find the books interesting and engaging.” Those types of books help to set the stage for future literacy and learning, she said.
Establishing a library in Haiti became Carr’s obsession.
But building a library seemed an impossible task, so Carr decided to start small: She would begin by simply bringing books to Haiti.
Carr cut pictures of animals, flowers and children from magazines, glued them to sheets of construction paper, slipped them into clear plastic sleeves and then snapped the pages into three-ring binders
On her next trip to Haiti, she brought along those homemade books. “I was literally smothered by children and adults,” she said. “It caused a sensation. It was really amazing.”
Upon her return home, Carr told of her experiences to her friend Jody Baker, a teacher at Jaffrey Grade School.
Baker immediately wondered if her class could become involved: Could they make books, too?
Involving Baker’s class achieved another of Carr’s goals — to raise awareness about the poverty and lack of reading materials in Haiti.
“It’s an hour and 20 minutes from the U.S. and people make $2 a day,” Carr said. “They are struggling in every sense.”
Soon a home-schooling group in Jaffrey and Dublin heard about Carr’s project and those students began making books too.
When Carr’s friend Nancy Lloyd of Jaffrey, a professor at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, found out about the project, she enlisted the help of her students, too. The college students cut out pictures and wrote simple phrases below them, which Carr translated into Haitian Creole.
In Haiti most of the books and official paperwork are written in French. It is the language of the elite, Carr said. It wasn’t until 20 years ago that the country recognized Haitian Creole as an official language, Carr said, even though it is spoken by the majority of its citizens.
Finding books written in Haitian Creole helps preserve the country’s culture, she said, and it helps the students feel more comfortable with reading.
Carr found a company in Florida that produces books written in Haitian Creole. “They really aren’t that expensive,” she said. A paperback book written in Haitian Creole can be purchased for $4.50, or a set of 20 books can be purchased for $50.
As Carr talked with more friends, and then those friends talked to their friends, more people began contributing to the project.
But Carr’s dream was still to create a library. Then, last March, she met the principal of the AMSAI School in Port-au-Prince and told him about her work. A smile spread across the man’s face: The school had an extra 14-foot-by-10-foot room — would that work as a library?
With the help of the school’s sponsor, tiles were added to the library floor and the room was repainted.
“My job is to bring books to fill it,” Carr said.
All of the 230 new, used and homemade books, as well as some donated refurbished laptop computers Carr also brought to Haiti in December, now sit in pink plastic hospital tubs in the AMSAI school’s new library. Each book has been catalogued.
Carr plans to return to Haiti next month to lead a workshop instructing teachers on the techniques and pedagogy behind reading books aloud to children.
“It’s a drop in the bucket,” she said, “but it’s something I feel is important.”
People wanting to donate can e-mail Emily Carr at thorndike354@aol.com. Donations of gently used children’s books can be placed in a drop box at the Jaffrey Town Library. Carr is especially interested in books with colorful pictures and simple text. Magazines or calendars are also needed to make more homemade books.
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