Culture Ministry Initiates Reading Plan in Moca

Culture Ministry Initiates Reading Plan in Moca
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 9/4/2011

The Ministry of Culture, through the General Directorate of Books and Reading, undertook the first phase of the Reading Pilot Plan in the Juan Bosch Cultural Center in the city of Moca.

Eleanor Grimaldi Silié, Director General of the Book and Reading Plan, explained that this program began in 2007 and now includes the province of Espaillat to the provinces of La Vega and Baní, where it is functioning successfully.

The plan consists of training reading promoters such as teachers and other individuals involved in culture to give them the necessary tools for the development of the project which seeks to get children and young people into the important habit of reading. The Plan is following the objectives of the Five Year Book and Reading Plan: to create a country of readers.

The project began with a meeting among the province’s teachers and others interested in promoting culture. They gathered to share their impressions with specialists from the Books and Reading Directorate. They later undertook an analysis of what steps to take to develop the Plan in their communities of Moca, through schools and reading clubs.

Eleanor Grimaldi Silié, Director General of the Book and Reading Plan, explained that this program began in 2007 and now includes the province of Espaillat to the provinces of La Vega and Baní, where it is functioning successfully.

José Guillermo López, Governor of the province, thanked the Ministry of Culture for taking the province into account when developing such an important project. He also emphasized the multiple contributions made by the Ministry through training workshops, theater festivals and cultural tourism, among other activities, thus contributing to the development of the community.

Among the strategies offered to those who attended the meeting were reading games that combined reading and playing games as a way of increasing interest among children. They offered dramatized readings as a way of integrating theater into literature. There were also several poetry readings, of universally-known poems, held at the meeting.

The Reading Pilot Plan in Moca was made possible with support and involvement of the Provincial Office of Culture, directed by Eugenio Camacho, and authorities from the Ministry of Education.