On the sidelines

We have been tweeting, texting, facebooking, instagram-ing about a new premise in Chimbel for our community library.

We are excited. From a small room in a long strip of rooms, we now have a small house, with a porch, three rooms, a Champa tree out in the front and the possibility of so much more. But my excitement emerges from more than the enlargement of space, it comes from the wonderful experiences we had at the inaugural program.

Terence Jorge our MOP coordinator took full responsibility for an inaugural event that merely required me to be present. The MOP team, an ace team when push comes to shove planned, prepared, carried and transported everything we needed to the site in time for our parent community to come.

      

It was lovely to have mothers come into the library with excited, proud children. They were shown the collection, the spaces we use, a flashback slideshow of our time in the community ( seven years and counting) and a presentation on what a visit to the library actually means.

We had the joy of listening to two older children share their experiences of being part of the program and one older young girl share how she now works with the program. It was wonderful.

But I retain the sense of having moved forward with the knowledge that all I had to do was listen.

Terence was fantastic in his sharing of our objectives and purpose. He was perceptive in reminding parents that the community library was a privilege, one that even a library educator like himself did not have in his childhood and therefore how and why the program must be maximised by all. He was thoughtful in how he included comments and gave children the opportunity to speak and be heard. He was inclusive in how he involved the other MOP team members so that the program was held by all and he was deeply sensitive to my limited ability to be everywhere at the same time and gave me the space to enjoy a program and simply feel blessed and proud.

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