Santo Thomas del Norte Municipal Library

Santo Thomas del Norte is a small, humble community on the northern edge of Nicaragua. The only access route to this town was recently paved, allowing more opportunities of development in this rural area. The fourteen hundred inhabitants of Santo Thomas are friendly and outgoing. Most of the people are farmers and some raise small herds of cattle. The lack of rain and poor job opportunities has left many people trying to make a living off of low-paying temporal jobs such as coffee bean picking and road building.

The library was opened in 2008 after the mayor traveled to Barcelona, Spain along with the librarian. The people of Barcelona donated the first books for the new library and trained the librarian. Currently the Santo Thomas del Norte Municipal Library has a collection of 1,600 books. In remote areas like this community, students might have to travel up to two hours to find a library. The local municipality is able to take care of the library’s basic needs, however, they don’t have the budget for acquiring books of furniture. These are some of the library needs:

Books

Furniture

Video and Audio Equipment

Computers

Internet

Karla Varela is a 12 year-old orphan who visits the library almost daily. She enjoys reading and painting. She considers this place almost her second house. After school, she almost always is found in the library, her only source of entertainment. According to the librarian, with a better education “culture will change and people will have better jobs.” The people of Santo Thomas del Norte are hard workers, now what they need are the knowledge resources to allow them to put their efforts into something that will be able to improve and develop their community.