Freedom

When you give a child a book, you give him the freedom to choose. If you take a good look at a book, you can see that it has two wings. A book in the hands of a community can be their ticket to freedom.

Belüba Lüba Fürendeí is a library and community center for children. We are a non-profit, non-religious and impartial committee that provides activities and programs for the youth of Labuga. We pride ourselves on being financially self-sufficient by developing our own fundraising strategies. Our aim is to foster the community in which we live.

Belüba Lüba Fürendeí is now located where Lillian Howland began studying the Garífuna language in Labuga in Barrio Paris in 1952. Those familiar with the SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) knows that it is an American based organization dedicated to bringing God to the “heathen” people of the world by making the bible available to them in their native languages. During my childhood, the children in the neighborhood would go to visit Lillian. In those days the youths in the hood did not speak Spanish but Lillian had no problem with us, because she was the first white woman I have heard speak Garífuna so well.

Belüba Lüba Fürendeí will open its doors to the community on the 6th November 2010. Our hope is to build a bridge between our communities with books. We hope to cultivate a relationship with the community, but more importantly we want to provide a space for the children in the neighborhood to have access to books, because if you put a book in the hands of a child today, you are showing him the way to freedom.

Itarala

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Lubara Huya