Emilio González congratulates the project “The Catalina turtle travels to the world of books”, one of the winners in Ourense of the María Moliner Awards 2023

Ourense, August 23, 2023.- The Deputy Delegate of the Government in Ourense, Emilio González, highlights in the Casa da Cultura e Biblioteca de Barbadás one of the winning projects of the María Moliner Awards 2023: “The Catalina turtle travels to the world of books.” These awards are granted by the Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) and are aimed at proposals presented by libraries of municipalities with less than 50,000 inhabitants. The total amount with which the libraries of Ourense were awarded amounts to 11,088 euros at the rate of 2,772 euros per library and project to invest in books, such as the caaso de Barbadás.

The objective of the competition is to reward those municipal libraries that carry out a project that includes actions to promote reading, efficiency and library work, social integration in their community, as well as the use of new technologies.

The program is of great strategic importance in access to books and reading, since approximately half of the Spanish population resides in municipalities with less than 50,000 inhabitants. The aim of the campaign is, following the ideal of María Moliner herself, that any reader anywhere can get the book that interests her.

Emilio González stressed that this "is a tremendously inclusive project in the whole of Barbadás society and pervious to all ages" because "it does not stop being a participatory project for older people, who in some way also involve parents, although it is aimed at children who can have a book in hand whenever they want, even without having to go to the library".

The former Councillor for Culture and promoter of the project, Marga Pérez, highlighted all the practical possibilities of the project "La Tortuga Catalina travels to the world of books". "We have always worked with the idea of working with the youngest ones, attracting those boys and girls to see that it is a living space where they can read, play, participate in workshops." “The whole project revolves around a turtle called Catalina, which actually exists and which is in the children’s school where the children of that school feed it.” The project carried out by the public library of Barbadás consists of different activities such as:

- Monthly workshops for different ages and in groups
- Welcome box for children under 3 years old.
- Collaboration with schools with the tortoise backpack; every week a children's manager has to go to the library with a family member, choose two books and take them to the classroom.
- Wooden houses painted by the children of the parishes where they can leave and collect books.
- Outdoor storytelling in the month of May; "told in the park"
- Collaboration with local libraries to make storytelling on book day.

Likewise, the subdelegate highlighted the rest of the winners in Galicia, with a total of 15, and in the province of Ourense in the municipalities of Verín, Cenlle and Esgos.