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Los Mangos Library: 20 years creating community in Vallarta

This month we celebrate in Puerto Vallarta a space that makes our city different. A place to provide cultural, educational and human growth services for twenty years. Do not miss the appreciation ceremony, this Tuesday, April 2, at the Lázaro Cárdenas Park in the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood in Puerto Vallarta at 6:00 p.m.

When the Los Mangos Library was born, libraries definitely stopped being a sober, boring and lifeless place.

Ever since I can remember I always liked to read, but when I went to libraries, silence was extremely imposing on me, I even felt uncomfortable if I made a noise while walking.

So when I found out what was going on at Los Mangos Library, my opinion changed forever. Beginning because it is incredible to think of a place where you find hundreds of books and feel wrapped by them. A multicultural center where everyone is welcome and differences are the best pretext for learning. Because regardless of color, religion, sexual preference, age or economic level, you feel at home or sometimes even better.

A sacred precinct full of art in all its manifestations: music, dance, painting, sculpture, theater, cinema, architecture and more. Of course, all in their respective spaces and times, in such a way that you can concentrate on the fantastic world of stories, tales, poetry, and novels by great authors, which speak in your ear and shake your spirit.

Biblioteca Los Mangos
Ballet workshop for girls and boys

Workshops of all kinds, always with the aim of learning something. And what to say about the summer camps for children, everyone in the library participates to make the holidays unforgettable...

Good and the best, a community that has become a family that pursues the same goals; look for the well-being of the other in all aspects.

Los Mangos Library: Ubuntu Community

I remember that once I heard a child ask the library director Adriana García, what did the word UBUNTU mean? And she told him: "Oh, something really nice, find out and bring it to me." Here in the library we live with that philosophy.

After hearing that, curiosity entered me. Logically beyond thinking that it was an open source or free operating system, I thought that there was a whole philosophy behind it and what was my surprise when I investigated? that indeed, the treasure of knowledge is not only in the place where you find answers, but also in the place where you make friends and give yourself to others.

Biblioteca Los Mangos
The traditional Storytelling, with parents and children

The UBUNTU philosophy was promoted by the great leader Nelson Mandela, from the new founding of South Africa, after spending 27 years in captivity. It proposes forgiving the other, and working with empathy to unite a group of people through different values, for example: "If everyone wins, you win", "A person becomes human through other people", "Everything that it is mine, it is for all the people». And many more. That, that is the air that is breathed in the Los Mangos Library.

A great leader is one who manages to inspire others

Of course, none of this would be possible if there wasn't a work team that gives so much love and dedication to a place like this. And less, knowing that he only lives on donations and the voluntary work of many people. Los Mangos Library has a free, open and transparent council, in which Mexican and foreign people participate, who have been in charge of giving life to a public place, which does not receive funds from any government instance. In other words, a group of volunteers who, out of love for the shirt, do everything and even the impossible to keep this sacred place standing.

Biblioteca Los Mangos
Library Board and Volunteers

And I say that it is sacred in every sense of the word, because it creates community, forms better citizens and that generates a freer and happier society.

Well, in addition to a particularly active and generous board, you have an incredibly professional staff and a leader with a big heart and intelligence, who never sleeps to inspire everyone to do their best for the rest.

Moving this great ship in a sea of uncertainty has not been easy in two decades. In which as in everything, there are sunny days and with favorable winds, and many others there are storms, winds and high tides. However this fantastic ship has survived everything for twenty years.

This ocean of knowledge is a place for children and adults, it is a space outside of time. A cultural center, a place to be entertained, learn, get lost among the books and meet among the talks.

Biblioteca Los Mangos

A library that transformed Vallarta and its surroundings. A place that transcends every day and that transforms everything it touches and magically turns it into well-being.

As Adriana García and her great team of collaborators have tattooed on their hearts, and that they promote by example every day, as the UBUNTU philosophy says: "A person becomes human through other people."

Long live Los Mangos Library!

Biblioteca Los Mangos

Adriana García

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