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Dustman Builds Free Library from Discarded Books

They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure and it’s long been said that books are the greatest treasure of them all. A dustbin man from Bogota, Colombia has earned the title The Lord of the Books as for the last twenty years he has rescued 20,000 thrown away books from the refuse, creating a free library.

Jose Alberto Guiterrez never studied beyond primary school education but he clearly understands the importance of a good education. So when he rescued a discarded copy of Anna Karenina from a bin twenty years ago it set off a lightbulb. He rescues the books and offers them to other people as a free community library, bringing thrown away literature from the wealthier parts of the city to the poorer districts for years.

He now has so many books, parents and families borrow from his collection, a free library called The Strength of Words. His home has become overfilled with books and so they are passing some of them onto other poor parts of the city. He says the more books they give away, the more find their way to them, creating a source of literature and education in areas that would usually struggle.

When asked by the BBC about the project, Mr Gutierrez said “Books transformed me, so I think books are a symbol of hope for those places. They are a symbol of peace.”

Although Mr Gutierrez is now in his 50s, the experience has inspired him to go back to study for his school leavers exams, which he missed the first time around.



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