The Associates
The Association La Pagina en La Puerta – Una Biblioteca Juvenil (The Page in the Door – A Children/Youth Library) is a family formed and run non-profit association. It is made up of Amy Bakal, her husband Jose Luis Ugarte de Souza, and her daughter Rachel Rose Reida. The library associates are unsalaried. When of age, their daughter, Sofia will also become one of the directors. For now, Sofia is content to be one of the child members of the library – to read, share books, and play games with the other children.
Amy Bakal
Founder and director, Ms. Bakal is the President of the Association La Pagina en La Puerta – Una Biblioteca Juvenil. Originally from New York City, she has lived here in Cusco Peru since June 2002, with her husband (a Peruvian) and their 2 daughters. Ms. Bakal is a graduate from the University of Colorado, Boulder (American Literature) and has a Master’s in Elementary Education, from Hunter College, New York.
After many years of working in magazine publishing and children’s book publishing, she returned to Hunter College and received a Master’s of Elementary Education. Ms. Bakal first taught as a substitute teacher and then finished 2 years of fulltime teaching in NYC public schools and her
NextMaster’s at the same time. Afterwards she moved to Peru. Here, she helped set up a bilingual (English/Spanish) school where she taught for a year. She then taught English to private groups -- children and adults. Ms. Bakal even taught English to the Novice’s at one of Cusco’s famous archaeological sites -- the Convent of Santo Domingo/Koricancha.
Wanting to share one of her great passions with children – reading and children’s books, Ms. Bakal started the library’s predecessor – a monthly reading and literacy based program at a poor local primary school. Wanting to reach even more children, Ms. Bakal and her associates began the library La Pagina en la Puerta in December 2005.
Jose Luis Ugarte de Souza
Mr. Ugarte is one of the Directors of La Pagina en La Puerta. He was born in Lima, where he studied and attended university. After working in the family business in Lima, Mr. Ugarte decided to move to