The first meeting of the Bages Easy Reading Clubs was held today. It is the first time that the experience has been carried out with more than a hundred participants, including members of the reading clubs and volunteers.
The initiative was promoted by the Central Catalonia Library Network, and was attended by the acting councillor for culture of Manresa City Council, Anna Crespo. Crespo opened the event in the large hall of the Ateneu Library, where she highlighted inclusive culture as a right of all people.
Anna Crespo said that libraries are the heart of culture and that culture is a right that should be accessible to everyone. She also said that the Easy Reading Clubs (LF) are an opportunity to bring libraries to life and that Easy Reading is a very effective adaptive tool to make what is explained understandable for everyone.
The meeting was very well attended by the hundred or so people who came together, mostly users of the AMPANS occupational centre services, which promote the reading clubs together with the libraries in the region. AMPANS has 10 active LF clubs in Bages. In today’s session, the guest writer was Silvia Llorente, author of books in Easy Reading, and the book chosen was Un reloj con dos iniciales, which deals with the civil war.
The president of AMPANS, Sebastià Catllà, closed the meeting, addressing all the participants. An event like today’s,” he said, “shows that the deployment of the occupational centres service is a success, and has fulfilled by far the objectives of approaching the municipalities, favouring participation and full social inclusion”. He also thanked the professionals, both from the libraries and the AMPANS day care services, who have made it possible “to venture into this great novel that we are building together”.
The Easy Reading Clubs began to be organised in 2014. There are currently 10 active clubs, spread throughout all the public libraries in the region, with the participation of around a hundred users of the organisation and dozens of volunteers.