Retired paraprofessional Belkis Marte reads to children in August at a reading nook she created in Los Calimetes in San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic.
Retired paraprofessional Belkis Marte grew up in a family of 11 girls and one boy in San Cristόbal, Dominican Republic, and attended a school with students of all ages educated in one room by one teacher. She did not learn to read until she was 9, and subsequentially devoured everything she could get her hands on.
She has carried that passion for literacy with her throughout her life. “Reading makes me dream. Writing gives me wings,” her Instagram bio reads in Spanish.
After raising a family in New York City and working with students for 18 years in city public schools, Marte retired in 2023 from PS 300 in the East Tremont section of the Bronx. She returned to San Cristóbal, a coastal region near Santo Domingo, to live full time and dedicate herself to a community literacy project she created called El Tablazo Lee. It is named for the rural village she grew up in — El Tablazo — and “Lee” a conjugation of the Spanish verb that means “to read.” So far, she has set up 33 rincones de lectura — reading nooks — across the Dominican countryside. Some are in churches and schools, and others consist of bookshelves she buys and then fills with books and places in people’s homes. The hosts agree to read to local children at least once a week, she said.
Marte had spent her summers in the Dominican Republic and knew before she retired that she would devote herself to El Tablazo Lee. “I didn’t want the kids nowadays to go through what I went through,” in terms of how old she was when she learned to read, she said.
Marte travels to the reading nooks to read to children, deliver and swap out donated books and, around Christmas, to bring donated toys, clothes and shoes to children living in poverty. She recently received a donation of nine boxes of books from Spain, she said.
A self-published author of 10 books herself, she also reads in Spanish from her own works. Her books, some of which are in Spanish and some in English and Spanish, include “El girasol haragan; The Lazy Sunflower” and “Abuelo, que es la Navidad?” (“Grandfather, What is Christmas?”) She brings along her susurrador or whisperer, a long PVC pipe that she decorated with vibrant fabric and colorful ribbons after watching a storyteller friend in the Dominican Republic use one in his work. Her “whisper phone,” as she calls it, is a variation on the classic string phone with cups, and she uses it to whisper poetry and little stories in children’s ears.
“I always have a line of kids waiting,” she said of the whisperer. “They love it.”
Marte, who also teaches creative writing at a local art school, was invited to read her works at the third annual international Escritores del Sol (Writers of the Sun) festival held in September in Las Talitas, Argentina.
She has also been recognized in her own country. Dominican President Luis Abinader Corona honored her for her contribution to education and community development. She received an award for short-story writing in the Dominican Republic, and she has been named Writer of the Year in her hometown.
Marte said none of her literacy project work would be possible without others donating their time, books and other goods and services for the children. “My job is to make them fall in love with reading,” she said.