Fourteen years ago, in one of the northern Maya villages in the
Yucatan, a visiting Stanford professor named Cynthia Wilber
started bringing books with her to share with the village
children. When she came back and saw how treasured the books
were, and that the entire village had memorized every word in
them, she decided to invest more time in her book-lending
project. In 1995, that small project became Proyecto Itzaes, or
“Project of the People,” a free, family-centered educational
program dedicated to helping the villagers (primarily of Maya
descent) develop new skills, promote literacy, and in a true
community effort, make every learner a teacher. In the Yucatan,
Maya people used to subsist on traditional farming and seasonal
fishing, but those are no longer enough to support a family. The
mission of Proyecto Itzaes is to help village children acquire
an education, respect their Maya cultural heritage, and use
education to fully realize their gifts in a changing world. And
books have everything to do with