IES Ribalta literature project.

The students from IES Ribalta, Castellón, had the opportunity to write and publish a book. It is often said that school kills creativity (as a video in Ted.com showed recently), so the aim of this project was to promote literature among young people. Every student was given the chance to write a short story related to one common topic, “changes”. This concept, which is not restrictive, motivated stories from all kinds, going from psychological changes to more physical ones, from realistic to very abstract ones.

Everything started last year in the Valencian department, where a teacher worked as a coordinator and published on collection of different stories also written by his students, named “Un Centenari de Mort”. The process has continued this year in both Valencian and English and this time the books are called “Magdalena, festa plena?” and “Changes”. All this work was made public in Castellón May 8th this year in the local “Fira del LLibre” week. First, Toni Xaler, the main coordinator of the project, explained the ideas of this project.

After him, some students who had written stories read some paragraphs to the public. It became a rewarding experience for everyone. All the money from the sales of the book in Valencian go to an NGO called “Patim”, which treats young people who had been involved in drug related problems, and the money from the book in English goes to “FUVANE”, which helps children with neurological problems to be less dependent in their daily life. All this material can be found in “www.viurelaliteratura.com”. Once you register, you can read and vote for all the stories completely for free.