Good News of the Week
by Veronica Joce
A Colombian garbage man opens community library after collecting books for 20 years
Jose Alberto Gutierrez, a garbage man who lives in Bogota, Colombia, has been collecting books that were thrown away for 20 years. Now he has opened a free community library with more than 25,000 books.
Jose Alberto lives in the low-income neighborhood of La Nueva Gloria barrio in southern Bogota. Gutierrez started his collection when he realized local children have to drop out of school and start working early because they can’t afford books. His home has turned into a community library called La Fuerza de las Palabras (Spanish for The Strength of Words), run by his family.
University surprises graduate by giving her service dog an honorary degree in Nursing
In December, when Maggie Leptrone graduated from the University of West Georgia with a degree in Nursing, so did her labradoodle, Mona. Maggie has Type 1 diabetes, and her dog Mona, who was trained to detect low blood sugar, saved her life when her blood sugar dropped to a dangerous level.
Mona went everywhere with Leptrone, and attended all of her classes and labs on campus. At commencement, the university recognized Mona with an honorary Bark-chelor of Science in Nursing. Leptrone, who has accepted a job as an intensive care unit nurse, told the Journal-Constitution she hopes this shows other people like her who have a service dog that they can still obtain a high level of education and do what they've always dreamed of doing with their lives."
Indian teacher who won $1 million Global Teacher Prize shares half of it with the runners-up
Indian schoolteacher Ranjitsinh Disale received the 2020 Global Teacher Prize and promised to split half of his $1 million award with the runners-up. Ranjitsinh Disale has worked to expand education for girls from tribal communities, and, in order to improve attendance at his school, learned the local language and translated textbooks.
He also created QR codes so students could access recorded lectures, audio files, and assignments, as technology now being used across India. Disale said he would split half of his winnings with the nine runners-up, giving each one about $55,000, because, as he told CNN, "if I share the prize money with the rest of the teachers, they will get a chance to continue their work and we can reach out and lighten the lives of as many students as we can."