IBBY-Yamada 2008: Bolivia

To be ourselves: handmade books

To recover the oral memory of Quecha people in the town of Colcapirua.  The project involved intense research work amongst local people and resulted in the production of picture books that were distributed back into the community. 

Bolivian IBBY worked with local people to collect stories from the Quechua people in the town of Colcapirua, not far from Cochabama.  The workshop made cloth books, which were then turned into colourful printed books in Spanish and Quechua and distributed in the community.  

The project comprised  making handmade texts in Quechua and Spanish by mothers and children with several topics: parties of the town, migrations, mythical and legendary. 

The main objective was to recover the oral memory of Colcapirua, little town of Quechua-speaking people near to Cochabamba through visits planned with the community and same animators and teachers. 

To do this the project leaders:

  1. Contacted the authorities of the community 
  2. Contacted the families where old women lived
  3. Created of an atmosphere of friendship, respect and interest for the intercultural wisdom. 
  4. Recorded the stories in Quechua which covered the original topics.
  5. Met community groups that wanted to participate in the making of the   books: mothers, teachers, children. 
  6. Workshops: transcription of the recorded texts, adaptation to simple language, production of the books. 
  7. Read  the texts to the old people of the community for their approval.
  8. Made the books using collage from materials found in the community. 
  9. Made some cloth books.
  10. Printed several of them in 500 copies.  
  11. Distributed for free 60% of the printed texts to the children in the schools of the community.