 Kids excited on the day of their library opening.
Latest News on Villa Serrano: Library opens on July 23rd! The community of Villa Serrano proudly opened the doors to their first-ever municipal library on July 23, 2007. Library Receives Book Donations The US Embassy and the Banco del Libro both donated books to the Villa Serrano library. LIBRARIAN PROFILE: Evelin Flores is a college educated, strong woman who loves her job as librarian in Villa Serrano. She works from two in the afternoon until ten o’clock every night teaching children to read, helping them with their homework and playing educational games with them. She is always calling BiblioWorks with new ideas, such as opening up a coffee shop in the library to raise money to buy new books. She has four children, two of which are identical twins and always keep her company in the library. Original Project Summary from October 2006:
Villa Serrano, at an altitude of 2,152 meters, is located about 180 km. west of the city of Sucre in the Department of Chuquisaca, Bolivia. Hills surround the pueblo and the Pescado River passes through the lower section of town.
BiblioWorks Standard Library / Program B
Total Cost/Value of Project: $6844.50
Total Cost for BiblioWorks: $4386.63
Time Frame of Project: January – June 2007
Project Written by Peace Corps Volunteer Sarah Ellgen
Founded as San Miguel de la Quebrada in 1779, Villa Serrano has a population of about 3,900 inhabitants and is the capital of the province of Belisario Boeto. Belisario Boeto is divided into six districts with a total population of about 15,000. The entire province is an agricultural community with a variety of crops including beans, wheat, potatoes, barley, corn, peaches, peanuts, peppers, and oregano.  View of Villa Serrano  Pescado River
Villa Serrano serves as the commercial hub for the province. Services in the town include a hospital and independent doctors; dental services; internet providers; small shops; a central market; restaurants; and hotels. While the dominant language in some of the outlying communities is Quechua, most residents in Villa Serrano speak Spanish in daily conversations. The predominant religion is Catholicism, while about 15% of the population practices Protestant religions.
Villa Serrano has a number of educational institutions and attracts students province-wide at the high school level, as well as nation-wide for post-secondary education. The elementary school has 492 students and 535 students attend the high school. These 1,027 students include youth from nearby communities who during the week live in dorms and travel home for the weekends. After high school graduation, many students continue their education in cities, such as Sucre, although some continue at the local teacher’s college. The “Instituto Normal Superior de Educación Alternative” (INSEA) founded in 1965 is a teacher college with approximately 750 students. Specialties within the college are elementary education; and at the secondary level: social sciences, biological sciences, language/communication, and mathematics. Another educational institution, “Centro Educativo Integrado Técnico-Humanístico Acelerado Rural” (CEITHAR), was founded in 1986 as a technical high school where 118 students are currently studying agriculture science. Latin America Project Coordinator, Megan Sherar, with kids from Villa Serrano
Villa Serrano is known nationally as being a cultural center of traditional music and dance. A school of fine arts provides weeknight classes of traditional dance and charango and guitar music to local students. A prominent charango artist, Don Mauro Núñez, born in a nearby community, lived in Villa Serrano for part of his life and contributed numerous art works to the town, as well as strengthening the tradition of charango music and the “zapateria” dance. Currently, a two-story museum is under construction to display his works, as well as the world’s largest charango, which was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2001. The second floor of the museum will be designated as a meeting space.  World's Largest Charango, according to Guinness Book of World Records, 2001
Among other traditional holidays such as Easter and All Saints Day, Villa Serrano is a popular location for Christmas as well as an annual charango festival. The festivities for Christmas include choreographed group dancing through the streets from the 25th to the 28th of December. The mayor’s office awards prizes for the best dance groups by category. At the end of September, in conjunction with the celebrations for the patron saint of Villa Serrano, Saint Michael, the mayor’s office also hosts an annual charango festival and competition, which attracts contestants throughout Bolivia.
Peace Corps volunteer, Sarah Ellgen, has worked in Villa Serrano since November 2005 as a community tourism volunteer hosted by the mayor’s office. She became interested in improving the current library after observing that while there were frequent visitors to the library, the requested resources were not available. Talking to the current library caretakers, she realized how improved literacy resources would substantially improve the level and quality of education for the large number of local students, as well as help foster intellectual motivations of the out-of-school population.
 Library is located on the second floor of this building. Windows are being opened up on the two sides of the door. The designated library space is located about two blocks from the village center. It will be directly opposite the new charango museum and community meeting space, and next to the Plan International, Inc. - sponsored internet center. The first floor of the building houses the School District office and the second floor is currently empty and used as a meeting space. Behind the library building is an open cement courtyard encircled by one-story classrooms that are utilized by the school of fine arts for their nightly music and dance classes. The courtyard also serves as informal after school hang-out where kids play together while the cultural classes occur. This location is ideal for the library because of its proximity to the village center, the constant flow of patrons to the adjacent internet center as well as students attending the nightly cultural classes.
The large number of students of all ages in Villa Serrano suggests a strong need for a better-equipped central library; according to 2001 census data, about half the population of Villa Serrano is under the age of 20. Currently there is a very small, antiquated library located adjacent to the mayor’s office, with extremely few books. INSEA and CEITHAR also have small, antiquated libraries as well. These scholarly resources fall well below the demand of the community and educational institutions to meet the literary needs of local students and residents.
 Two high school students studying after school.
The focus of this project is to renovate, enlarge and improve the resources of the community library in Villa Serrano, Chuquisaca. The library will serve as a key resource in an academic environment with a high number of teachers, students, young people, and professionals. Additionally, the library will serve as a meeting place for educational campaigns to increase literacy in the community.
The project will receive strong support from the educational community in Villa Serrano, which includes the elementary and high schools, as well as a teacher’s college and an agricultural technical high school. A committee comprised of representatives from key supporting organizations will help determine library functions and operations. The library promises to fill a noticeable gap in the community infrastructure. Peace Corps volunteer, Sarah Ellgen, will work with all relevant institutions to ensure consistent and sustainable use of the library.
BiblioWorks project funds will be utilized for the renovation expenses, purchase of books, materials, furniture, and other library essentials. BiblioWorks will also be coordinating the shipment of books and other items from abroad to Sucre in an international container. This municipal library project in Villa Serrano will be a BiblioWorks “standard library” and will be funded at the Program B level.
Links of Interest:
Google Satellite Images of Region General Information about Bolivia |
