Smiles for Books.

“Nothing scares us more than the awareness of what we can do.”

                                        Soren Kierkegaard 

This sentence is on the inside cover flap of the book "Leaving Microsoft to Change the World”, by American author John Wood, ex-upwardly-mobile executive at Microsoft, who, on a hiking trip through the Himalayas, discovered that his life’s objective was to give back to the world what he had received. During a visit to a school in Nepal, whose library had but a few books, left behind by backpackers like himself, he offered to help. Months later he returned with a few thousand books he had collected from his friends and relatives, becoming very aware of the importance of his gesture of solidarity, and he decided to leave Microsoft to found Room to Read (www.roomtoread.org) , a NGO whose mission it is to build schools, libraries, computer centers and to provide long-term scholarships to needy girls.

Following his example, we immediately accepted the challenge and got to work with all our resources to collect the greatest number of books possible, to build the Mateiros library. Mateiros is a city inside of the Brazilian state of Tocantins. Its estimated population in 2004 was 1 831 people.

Besides the general population, the young students of the area are the ones who will benefit most from it.

When we launched the campaign, our goal was to collect 300 books. In a week we had more than that and now we have collected 10,000 books.

The success was so great that the project increased. The Library of Mateiros was delivered on June 7. In the coming months will be delivering two small libraries in the communities of Mumbuca and Galhão. The next phase of the project will involve the participation of the State Government and will be routed to eight more cities also in the Jalapão.

Our campaign has now more than 6 months, we have collected 15,000 books, hundreds of people were involved, distant locations like Sao Paulo, Morro Agudo, Belo Horizonte and Joinvillle, all linked to the small city of Mateiros in Jalapão on behalf of Solidarity. Worth reflecting on what said Gabriel Chalita in his book "Pedagogy of Love": "How beautiful is the conscience of serving and understanding the superiority of being and the transience of having."

Finally it is worth highlighting the efforts of our partner UNA, in Belo Horizonte, which involved thousands of its students in a move unprecedented for collecting books contributing over half of everything that has been collected so far.

The strength of our partners and the involvement of our clients makes us believe that the next phase of the project will have an even greater brightness, building other 8 libraries located in municipalities in the Jalapão region will require 45,000 books.

The "Smiles for books" is now part, beside our support to Lar da Benção Divina, of our commitment to social responsibility associated with the financial management of our clients funds.

Join us on this challenge!

We count on your generous support and energy.

Visit the website of the project: http://sorrisosporlivros.blogspot.com/