It has been a month of reflecting on how the ‘world’ views our work.
Bookworm has been in the news for some significant areas of work. Teacher Plus carried a feature written by educator Jennifer Thomas on our MOP program, the local press through Goa Streets featured our newest book My Godri Anthology and our MOP program in two separate issues, the Navhind Times continues to support us with featuring our events and listing. Ramdas Kelkar wrote about our work at Bookworm in Goa Doot, and blog hits from around the world indicate that people are interested in what we are doing and reading us. Tonella Countinho of the Goa Times spent considerable time talking to us about our vision, our work and the practice. All these instances allow us at Bookworm to reflect on our own choices and while sometimes it is tiresome to go back and re write how it began, why it began these become checkpoints for how we have grown and why.
Not every interaction is about praise and adulations. Many of our supporters genuinely care about our growth and vision and choose to inform us in more critical ways. These we celebrate the most. Victor Rangel Ribeiro spent a fair share of time talking to our publishing team about editing texts, choices and balances when publishing and maintaining ‘standards’ in the industry. Jason Keith Fernandes, walked with our Cholta team and reminded us to examine our stories more carefully, to review our approach to programs and events and continue to strive to keep a balance and a careful consideration about our underlying philosophy of work and audiences.
Educators and organisations working in the field of Early Literacy and Library work continue to draw upon our experiences with our MOP and School programs, we continue to support training of teams from outside the State who value our experience and pedagogy . Parents who choose to make Bookworm library space in Taleigao a stop en route to life remind us that we are indeed integral to the community, the work we choose to do and the responsibility we have ahead of us. It is important to allow the world to look in, because it forces us to look inwards even more and that is a good way to grow!