Erika Manrique attended a medical appointment at the Tres Puentes Community Health Center in The Bronx with her young children.
To their surprise, they found a library in the waiting room.
Erika Manrique, patient at Tres Puentes community health center says:
“It seems to me that it is very important that there is this library because it relaxes them and they feel good about coming where they are cared for and where they are educated.”
That is precisely the objective of Urban Health Plan, through books to promote reading in children from low-income communities, and fight against inequality.
“I believe that in community centers it is very important to integrate reading with the health care we provide, because we use that opportunity for them to learn to be able to read more by being able to read better,” says Paloma Izquierdo Hernández, president of Urban Health Plan.
“There are, I think, three books per child in communities that have more resources, where here there is one book for 300 children,” he adds.
For the inauguration of the small library, they invited several children from the Brilla Charter School, to whom the doctor herself even read a book.
Melissa Carreño, director, Tres Puentes Community Health center notes:
“That library we have here at the clinic is for the child patients who come here. But also, if you are not our patient and you are part of the community, you can come here and pick up a book. For example, we have books that are bilingual. There is Spanish in English in this part of here we have books for teenagers in different languages. “It talks about education for teenagers, books that maybe they can read at school or when they come here to the clinic.”
The books were donated by United’s Way’s Books from Birth program, which for more than 20 years has instilled reading from Birth to adulthood.
Leurys Acosta, community literature manager explains:
“If they don’t know how to read, they can’t learn. We try to create access to books so they can develop their literacy. It is very important because that is how one becomes independent. You get to places by reading the signs on the street and you read books to continue developing your brain and continuing in school and at work. “You have to read to defend yourself.”
In the end the children ended up making a tour by the clinic.
