Fundación La Fuente (FLF) is a non-profit institution engaged in promoting and implementing educational and cultural initiatives that benefit at-risk communities.
Since 2000, FLF has been creating school libraries, improving public libraries, equipping mobile school and community libraries and developing museums and cultural centers in urban and rural areas all over Chile. Its staff brings a diversity of backgrounds and experience to the organization and includes primary and secondary school teachers, specialists in literature, actors, musicians, artists, management experts, designers, sociologists, child development specialists, and librarians.
FLF’s landmark program, Creating Tomorrow’s Readers, develops school, public, and mobile libraries for school children and communities at large. The project entails the implementation of a reading program, and to this end teaches educators and librarians how to develop and manage reading and related cultural activities.
The goal of the project is to introduce and encourage reading among children, youth and community by providing reading and teaching materials that respect and celebrate each community’s specific interests and needs.
In the eighteen years since its establishment, the Fundación La Fuente has raised and invested US$9 million for the benefit of our programs, which operate in over 72 neighborhoods in cities, towns and villages throughout Chile, a country that extends over 2.500 kilometers from Arica in the north to Magallanes in the south.
From our center of operations in Santiago, we have built libraries and brought programs to some of the most remote corners of a country with a transportation infrastructure that presents tremendous challenges to these kinds of efforts. FLF belongs to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA); the Center for the Book, Library of Congress; and the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), Chile.
Recognitions
2014
- Alonso Ercilla Prize, given by the Chilean Academy of Language for the Fundación la Fuente’s contribution to the spread of Chilean Literature.
- The Iboamerican Board of Best Practices for our blog The Street of the Mapache, a distinction given by the Virtural Reading Center under the Spanish Minister of Education, Culture and Sport.
2013
- Prize for the Contribution to the Development of Reading, given by the municipality of Providencia.
2009
- Prize of the Chilean Association of Books for the Encouragement of Reading.
- Bicentennial Seal, given in recognition to our project Biblioteca Viva.
2008
- Prize of E – Waste Recycling, for “Campaign for the Environment, 2008” at the Biblioteca Viva.
2007
- Avonni Award, for the Biblioteca Viva project, in recognition of its innovation in the public sphere.
2006
- Future Foundation, City Prize, for the Biblioteca Viva project.
2005
- Prize from the Board of Natioal Monuments, the Osorno Province, for FLF’s project to recuperate the facades and houses of the community of Puerto Octay.
- AMCHAM Prize (Association of Northamerican Commerce), in recognition of FLF’s project to increase financial literacy in the community of La Pintana, in conjunction with Citigroup.
2004
- AMCHAM Prize (Association of Northamerican Commerce), in response to the foundation’s mobile library efforts in the community of Cerro Navia in conjunction with Citigroup.
Contact:
Ms Verónica Abud
Exequiel Fernández 394, Ñuñoa, Santiago – CHILE.
[email protected]