In early October five Riecken team members in addition to a government representative from both Guatemala and Honduras were invited to attend the Beyond Access 2012 conference, entitled Local Alternatives for Global Development: Rediscovering Libraries in Washington, DC. Beyond Access is a global community of public library advocates and practitioners who believe libraries are an untapped resource in addressing the world’s most pressing development challenges.
Earlier this year two Riecken libraries were selected among the twenty teams from nineteen different countries who were invited to participate in the conference. Biblioteca Comunitaria Rija’tzuul Na’ooj in San Juan La Laguna, Guatemala and Biblioteca “Arturo Flores Aguiluz” in San Luis, Honduras were the two libraries accepted as members of Beyond Access.
The teams presented their innovative community ideas to over 300 participants at the conference. Participants presented their project proposals to a panel of judges and the voting public. Each idea was refined over a two-day period by Beyond Access teams and each team worked with a graphic recorder to present their idea on a poster for the innovation fair.
The winning teams in each of five categories will be awarded $10,000 along with additional coaching by the sponsor of the conference, IREX. The hope is that this conference (attendees represented 40 countries) will mark the beginning of a movement to use public libraries to move beyond the traditional model and to use their facilities to promote development in developing countries.