In 2000 social entrepreneur, Allen Andersson, and his wife, Susan Riecken, established the Riecken Foundation, a privately funded family foundation.  Their dream and mission was to replicate the work of Andrew Carnegie in building community libraries throughout Central America.  Because of their generosity, today, there exists a network of 64 vibrant libraries throughout Honduras and Guatemala.

It is no secret that many things changed with the economical collapse of  2008.  As a result the Riecken Foundation has had to shift from enjoying support from a single donor to diversifying its support base with multiple donors and institutional partnerships, and from growing exponentially to ensuring sustainability.  It has been critical to both countries to keep the community libraries open and to even grow the network to continue to improve the global connectivity of rural communities.

Thus, in the past two years Bill Cartright, CEO and Country Director in Honduras and Paul Guggenheim, Country Director in Guatemala and their respective staffs have all done a marvelous job of shifting from being program directors to non-profit fundraisers as well.  All worked for months without pay because of their belief in the work of the Riecken Foundation.  Many expenses have been cut and a decision has been made to create a new 501(c)(3) to streamline fundraising processes and better facilitate communications with supporters of the network in Guatemala and Honduras.   Clearly, we welcome your support for both networks.  The point of this blog is to keep supporters informed about the activities of Riecken Guatemala until such time as we have created a new website devoted to the Guatemalan library network.

Guatemalan Country Director, Paul Guggenheim, has worked tirelessly to gain support for his libraries within Guatemala itself.  As a result the libraries are starting to gain international recognition.  During the week of April 11th – 17th Cheryl Neely and Basilia Lopez from the US Embassy in Guatemala City accompanied Paul visiting six libraries, including the public library in Quetzltenango, in commemoration of National Library Week in the US. Each library was given a gift of books and stories were read to the crowds of children who attended.   In the very limited government libraries in Guatemala children are discouraged from handling books and statistics show that, in most areas of the country, less than 1% of Guatemalans have books in their homes.  The enthusiasm the children show for the books and story hours in the Riecken libraries confirms the evidence that early reading can make the difference in a child’s interest in learning.

The Rotary Club of Woodside/Portola Valley (CA) which has been a big supporter of one of the newest libraries in Xolsacmalja, in the department of Totonicapan, recently donated the funds to connect this 100% indigenous community to the internet.  The Embassy for Finland in Central America and the Machi Project out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are working in six of the libraries on projects to preserve the indigenous cultures and improve reading and writing skills in Maya language, thus empowering the people to move forward. (www.machiproject.org).

A lovely little girl named Quincy who lives in Napa, California asked her friends to give her Spanish books for her 8th birthday for one of the libraries.  They are now in Guatemala and will soon be delivered to Xolsacmalja.

Future updates to this blog will highlight individual libraries, their programs, their sucesses and their needs.

The Riecken Foundation believes that a broad network of community libraries providing high quality services, access to information, and skills and leadership training so people can develop their own opportunities is a critical component of achieving sustained development in Central America.  Clearly, many more libraries are needed and your help is needed to both sustain the existing network of eleven libraries and to establish new ones. Riecken Guatemala has a long list of hundreds of requests from communities.

It is worth noting for other organizations, that last year Riecken Guatemala began advising other institutions in establishing community libraries, improving the quality of reading programs and increasing the levels of local participation at existing libraries and teacher resource centers.

Please give some thought to what your life would have been like without a library, without ready access to books.  Please share your good fortune with those whose dream it is is to join the global community.  It is very easy in Guatemala to leverage a small number of dollars into something much bigger.  With the launch of our new website we will have a link to Paypal but in the meantime we ask you to send a tax-deductible check (confirm with your accountant) in any amount to:

Fundacion Riecken (A-584)
P.O. Box 669004
Miami Springs, FL 33266

$25 will buy 3 high quality childrens’ books
$50 will pay 8 families to attend an early childhood development workshop
$100 pays for 12 girls to attend leadership and self-esteem classes
$1000 will buy a computer, a desk and chair
$6000 will train and pay a library director’s salary for a year
$30,000 pays for a fully stocked mobile library and operations for one year.
$60,000 will build and stock a brand new library.  Please let us know if you know of a service club that might be looking to fund a literacy project.

You may also make a contribution very easily online through the Global Giving website at the following link:
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/creating-girl-readers-in guatemala/ .

Won’t you help girls like these have a chance at participating in the global community and realizing their potential?  Buy them a book or two or even a library.  If you are a Facebook or Twitter user please click on the “Share” link at the top of this page and share this blog with your friends.  Muchas gracias!

The Riecken Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. For further information please contact Riecken Guatemala Director, Paul Guggenheim at pguggen@riecken.org.

Joan Fuetsch, Development Adviser, Friends of Riecken Guatemala
rieckenfriends@gmail.com