Section 3 A
DEVELOPMENT AND FULFILMENT PROGRAM
In the Development and Fulfilment Program we focus on all community members in our districts aged between 0 and 100+: children, adolescents and adults. We make development possible in a fun and informal way, from personal growth, linguistic development and reading improvement as well as sharing knowledge, research, and inspiration. In this program we work towards a connection with the local community, our partners and with other programs offered through the Kennemerwaard Public Library and Artiance. The coronavirus restrictions also prompted the search for alternative ways to provide our services in 2021. We telephoned senior citizens to reduce their isolation and to read to them online. Several ongoing activities, e.g., reading groups, the Dichterssymposium (Poetry Symposium) and the Book Week activities were made available online or via streaming.
In brief Highlights from the Development and Fulfilment Program in 2021
A walk with Maartje Wortel and Tim Knol
November is always the month of the year that everyone reads in the Netherlands and a free book is made available to all. ‘Talking a walk’ was the theme for this year. Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, more and more people began to enjoy walking, including Maartje Wortel (author of many books and collections) and Tim Knol (a singer-songwriter from Hoorn). Maartje Wortel is the author of the book De Groef, where she narrates a walk taken with a close friend. Tim Knol began his own walking club, De Wandelclub, for musical walks. In association with the Westfriese and Kopgroep libraries, and Poppodium Victorie, we invited this duo to perform at the Poppodium Victorie. Maartje and Tim knew each other well, and they proved to be a great combination. Lisa, our colleague from the Westfriese libraries, held the interview which resulted in an interesting evening filled with interaction and combined with live music, humor, fun and literature.
48
visitors
Children’s Book Week
‘Become Who You Want!’ That was the theme for the Children’s Book Week in 2021. There was so much happening in the library branches for one full festive week. Children played a career game where they were introduced to different professions, or discovered which job suited them the most in a playful way. And hundreds of kids went on a treasure hunt in the libraries. ‘Is it true for example that an astronaut sometimes needs to pee like a baby in a nappy?’ They found the answer in the library! There were also Meet & Greets where children were introduced to freelance professionals in Alkmaar Centrum. They discovered what qualities were needed for various occupations. There was a special CoderDojo edition, the Dojo for girls! In the Wild met wol (Wild with Wool) workshop, children joined the senior citizens to make something special while discussing careers, and to top it off, children could apply for a job at the library and work together as a special colleague for one day. It was a week full of games and learning, meeting people and gaining knowledge on the theme, ‘Become Who You Want!’
Numbers participants
Wild with wool
Alkmaar Centrum 7
Heerhugowaard 19
Treasure hunt
Alkmaar De Mare 73
Limmen 60
Akersloot 37
Heerhugowaard 134
Alkmaar Centrum 100
Castricum 75
Do books
Limmen 25
Akersloot 25
Castricum 120
Schoorl 15
Oudorp 30
Alkmaar De Mare 83
Heerhugowaard 90
Alkmaar Centrum 140
Meet & Greet
Alkmaar Centrum 17
Mena: Great fun! When you see all these jobs as a kid (especially cool female jobs) then everything seems possible!
Online reading Roxane van Iperen
A special evening event was held on 11 May 2021 where we met Roxane van Iperen, author of the poignant book ‘t Hooge Nest. It is a narrative about two Jewish sisters who were very active in the resistance during World War II, and not only because they were Jewish, but also because they were women, and mothers of young children. Roxanne van Iperen lives in the house where the sisters resided for a quite some time during the World War II, together with many people in hiding. During the reading she showed images of the beautiful garden and invited us to see the world where the sisters lived at that time. After Roxane’s reading and the interesting interview had with Dorien Haan, it was then time for the visitors to speak up: the old man who knew the characters in the book during his teenage years; and the young 18-year-old woman who had delved into the history of her own family who also had been active in the resistance. Many beautiful and inspiring stories were shared, and questions asked. We received positive messages from people afterwards who said that they planned to read the novel.
73
visitors
Cultuur Café Castricum
The Cultuur Café is a wonderful pilot in the Nieuw Geesterhage culture center in Castricum. The goal here is to allow people to become acquainted with cultural activities obligation-free, while at the same time providing an opportunity for people to meet. The Cultuur Café was set up thanks to a cultural subsidy and is in partnership with Toonbeeld, Stichting Welzijn, Nieuw Geesterhage and the Kennemerwaard Public Library. Each partner organized activities within the program. The library arranged a session on poetry albums and a one-time book club.
Let’s get going...poetry albums De middag over poesiealbums in het Cultuur Café belichtte een stukje geschiedenis aan de hand van de poesiealbums van vier generaties. Er waren elf gasten van wie sommigen hun eigen album mee hadden gebracht. De bijeenkomst leverde prachtige en vaak ontroerende gesprekken op, mede omdat er een heel gemêleerde groep aan tafel zat. Deelnemers uit verschillende culturen en een leuke mix van jong en oud. Herinneringen levend houden kan op veel manieren maar is binnen alle culturen en leeftijden belangrijk.
One-time Reading Club De Wandelaar (The Wanderer) This one-time reading club was also a very animated gathering with a total of ten members who had all read the book De Wandelaar by Adriaan van Dis. Even though they did not know each other, there was still a good exchange of ideas on the book and the author. Many of the participants would like to meet again to discuss the book.
"I really enjoyed this! It was fun to study a book this way. Learned a lot this afternoon."
Human Library online
You don’t read books in the Human Library, you read people, people you don’t normally speak to in everyday life. This turned out to be a great event online that united people, overcame prejudices and created new connections. Twenty conversations took place in the 2021 edition with ten different ‘books’, the titles of which varied from Alleenstaande Moeder, Clown and Borderline to Feministe. The patrons were very positive and said they would encourage their friends, family, and acquaintances to give it a try.
"A beautiful and honest conversation on striving for equality, courage and on motives."
"Had a good and fascinating conversation with my book! Really great."
20
participants
Nationale Voorleesdagen (national days that promote reading out loud to children)
The reading out loud days in January were a little different this year. Parents could request a ‘Nationale Voorleestas’ in the library which included four picture books, a reading guide, a coloring-in drawing from the picture book Coco kan het!, a Coco creative board, and a Coco finger puppet. Coco kan het! was the picture book of the year 2021. Many bags were handed out during this period and were appreciated by both parents and children. Together with the reading bag, reading out loud continued as usual, but then online. Keen staff members read the Coco story and the children listened. The reading days were also promoted at different childcare locations. Read more in the chapter on Education in Childcare.
Online reading participants
144
Reading bags on loan
99
Tamara: Ordered reading bag immediately!! It’s fun. Kim: Great initiative
Alkmaar Ontmoet
The ‘Alkmaar Ontmoet’ campaign began in Alkmaar in September. It is a partnership between the municipality of Alkmaar, Art.1 Bureau Discriminatiezaken Noord-Holland Noord and the Kennemerwaard Public Library. The aim is for residents to think about what they could contribute to creating a more integrated community. This occurred during the meetings and open conversations utilizing the Jump Movement method. It’s a special way to share where a safe setting is created during the gatherings for participants from mixed backgrounds. These were organized in the various branches of the Kennemerwaard Public Library as an initial step towards more awareness on this topic. The next step is to delve deeper during the conversations.
no. of participants
90
CoderDojo Kennemerwaard
CoderDojo is a place where young people learn programming. It’s an activity run by volunteers. We organized CoderDojos both online and in person in 2021. Due to the inconsistent restrictions, we sometimes had to change the way we organized our dojos. Children could join in the online dojos in the first six months of 2021, and we organized two special music dojos with Sonic Pi and Scratch for Artiance’s music students. In the second half of the year, we began the dojos in person: Lego Mindstorms, JuniorIOT, dojo4girls; and the regular dojos in Egmond, Heerhugowaard, Limmen, Alkmaar Centrum, Alkmaar De Mare en Castricum. Unfortunately, we were forced to cancel the live dojos in late November. We are very proud of the flexibility of both volunteers and participants who were associated with the dojos the past year.
no. of dojo’s
28
no. of participants CoderDojo
194
PrutsHubDagen
‘De PrutsHub is coming to you’ is the motto for the PrutsHubDagen we organized for the first time in 2021. In the PrutsHub you can ‘prutsen’ (experiment) with a 3D-printer, different robots, Ipads and other materials. As the PrutsHub was only available in Heerhugowaard, we decided to extend it to other branches. During school vacations we organized workshops in the Bergen, Castricum, Heerhugowaard, Alkmaar De Mare and Alkmaar Centrum branches. Children familiarized themselves with digital materials in an informal way during these workshops. During the ‘Monsterworkshop’, ‘3D Design’, ‘Build your own robot’, ‘Programming your parents’ and ‘Experimenting with robots’ workshops, they worked on improving their own reading and digital skills in their own library.