BNK National Reading Program
Our mission is to be the gateway to knowledge, literacy and creativity for the citizens of Curaçao. Our principal means of providing people with these important foundations for development is, naturally, our collection of reading material.
Aside from our purpose as the center for Curaçao’s national collection of information we also have a public function. And to this end we organize a national reading program throughout the year that focuses on reading promotion, launching projects aimed primarily at getting children from the ages of 4 to 12 excited about reading. We do this because we know reading is supremely important!
The program culminates in a fun-filled children’s book week at the end of the year called Siman di Ban Lesa (SBL). Read more below about BNK’s national reading program and the Siman di Ban Lesa (SBL)
Reading aloud to children at schools
This project involves employees from several commercial companies on the island volunteering to read aloud to children at schools. Before performing this task, they attend reading workshops in which they learn reading techniques.
The book passport program
The book passport program consists of two campaigns aimed at stimulating a proclivity for reading within children, while getting their parents and teachers involved in the process as well.
Reading workshops for parents and educators
Studies have shown that it makes a big impact on children’s reading behavior when their parents regularly read to or with them at home. So this must be encouraged!
Workshops on media literacy
Media literacy is essentially the ability to access, analyze and evaluate messages in a variety of forms, from print to video to the internet. It cannot be stated enough that the last one is of particular importance in today’s digital age.
Library tours for elementary school children
We give tours of the library to elementary school children at three stages of their primary education: the first grade, the third grade and the sixth grade.
Siman di Ban Lesa (SBL)
The Siman di Ban Lesa (The Reading Week) is our annual project that takes place at the end of the year to promote children’s books. As one would expect, the main objective is reading promotion and we organize a wide variety of activities that center around this.