Carlow County Library Service (Ireland) – Šiauliai City Municipality Public Library (Lithuania)
Libraries
Year
2021
Description of sistership
In 2021, Šiauliai City Municipality public Library (Lithuania) signed a cooperation agreement with the Carlow County Library (Ireland). And in 2022, both libraries joined a joint initiative – the "Pen Pal" project was launched. This is a project about pen pals, i.e. people, who regularly write to each other and send letters by post.
One of the goals of the project was to give students the opportunity to send and receive handwritten letters and possibly develop international friendships that can continue into the future. The target group of the project is youth aged 12–14. The 6th grade students of the Tullow Community School (Carlow County) took part in the project activities in Ireland, and the sixth graders of the Šiauliai Gytariai pro-gymnasium in Lithuania.
As part of the project, there were four remote letter writing workshops led by Irish creative writing educator Megan Wynne. After the workshops, the students wrote their first letters to their pen pals in Ireland. The students from Ireland did the same. Letters were sent by post. In total, during the project, students from both countries wrote and received letters twice, and in this way, little by little, an international friendship was established.
It was a great experience for both libraries and the other participants who took part in the organized activities!
The curators of the initiative in the libraries were Jurgita Januševičiūtė-Taralė (Šiauliai City Municipality Public Library) and Elena Puyo-Valverde (Carlow County Library).
Penpal iniciative: a sistership activity from Carlow County Library (Ireland) and Šiauliai City Municipality Public Library (Lithuania)
Sistership activities: a Creative Writing Competion and a Comic Workshop from the Carlow County Library (Ireland) and Siauliai City Municipality Public Library (Lithuania)