In the Ixil region of western Guatemala, reading is a far from universal skill. It is a rare and unusual ability possessed by a small sector of society. According to recent studies conducted by the United Nations, 21% of Guatemalan males 15 years and older are illiterate and 35% of females 15 years and older are illiterate.  Much of the remaining “literate” population can only read in the most basic sense of the word, meaning they are able to stumble slowly through newspapers and legal documents. These figures are not surprising given the poor state of education. In urban areas of Guatemala only 5 out of 10 students who enter the first grade will graduate from sixth grade.  This number is even more alarming in rural areas where only 2 out of every 10 students graduates from the sixth grade.  This means that in certain regions of Guatemala only 20% of the population will achieve what in the U.S. would be considered an elementary level of education. Though recent statistics indicate that the situation is improving along generational lines, the Ixil triangle remains one of the most undereducated and most underdeveloped regions of Central America.

For years it has been acknowledged that education, literacy training, and other forms of human capital are vital factors in economic growth. In fact, recent international research has indicated that raising a country's literacy score by just 1 per cent leads to a rise in productivity of 2.5 per cent with the flow-on increase of 1.5 per cent in GDP. Yet education and human capital remain in lowest supply in countries and regions that most badly need economic growth. Many economists have explained this seemingly baffling situation by demonstrating how poverty can generate its own vicious cycles that prevent growth from taking place. For example, in the Ixil region, the reasons most commonly cited for leaving school are, at base, economic: lack of materials necessary for study, lack of funds necessary to buy such material and pay tuition, lack of time due to the need to work and generate a subsistence income. The poverty of the region thus prevents its people from receiving an education and yet, as we have already seen, it is this same lack of education that prevents them from eliminating their poverty, effectively locking them in a vicious cycle. 

In the United States, the government makes at least a salutary effort to combat such vicious cycles of poverty by investing in public schools, funding local libraries, and providing underprivileged students with grants, scholarships and affordable loans. In Guatemala, no such programs exist. Public schools are nonexistent in some parts of the country. Libraries, in the few places they do exist, are usually privately owned and guard their extremely limited resources rather jealously. In addition, poor students have no access to credit from the private or the public sector. All of this creates a situation in which educational resources for development, though desperately needed, are in dreadfully short supply.
 

The Cento Explorativo's Library was founded with the following goals in mind: 

• To impart basic research and literacy skills through a locally operated library which also creates long-term local employment.
• To provide an affordable, accessible and comprehensive library/research center for aspiring students in the Nebaj area, making otherwise prohibitively expensive educational materials available for their use and thereby enhancing the quality of local education.
• To inspire a love of reading in the youth of Nebaj and, over time, instill a local culture of reading for leisure and interest as opposed to only reading for school or work. 
• To familiarize the local populace with information technology and acquaint them with electronic, internet/based research. 
• The library program is ultimately aimed at helping to break the vicious cycle of poverty by allowing the local society to generate its own human capital.

Click here to view the outcomes model for the Community Library.

• The library currently has over 250 inscribed members and provides services to dozens of other clients who are not officially inscribed
• More than 40 students take advantage of the library's services on an average daily basis 
• 100's of local residents have not only been aided in their research for school and work-related projects, but they have also been instructed in library research and other basic literacy techniques. 
• There are more than 2,000 books in the library to date including reference works, literary works, children’s' books, and works on history, math, science, physics, geography, geology, paleontology, anthropology, sociology, business, marketing, economics, biology, health, medicine, human rights, and law. 
• Special internet and computer classes given to dozens of local children 
• Cheap internet and computer access provided to 100's of local residents  
• Full time employment provided for 4 local teachers
  

The library has experienced numerous successes over the past several years, growing rapidly and increasing the number of local people who benefit from its services. We have every intention of keeping it moving along the same track by expanding its coverage and providing new, improved services. Some of our most promising future projects include: 

• Opening a second library branch, complete with internet access, numerous books, and several full time employees, in the nearby village of “La Pista.”
• Offering regular, month-long versions of the Internet classes, which were so successful earlier this year. 
• Creating after school educational clubs for local youth including junior achievement, chess club, and reading club.
• Designing a local website with original educational content, information on local educational events/programs, and links to Spanish language educational web resources.