Garnica promotes reading with ‘Books for Factories’

On October 5, the ninth year of Books for Factories (Los libros, a las fábricas) was held at our factory in Valencia de Don Juan, presided over by photographer Paco Gómez and his book Los Modlin, with 100 workers in attendance.

Throughout this past September, a hundred workers from our company voluntarily signed up for this activity through the UGT Union Council and, in return, received a copy of Gómez’s work to read. As a result, our colleagues at the factory located in Valencia enjoyed this day of books and culture, discussing the book’s content with its author.

Under the slogan “¡Fotolee!” (Photo Read), the Anastasio de Gracias Foundation has been promoting the habit of reading in the industry for almost a decade. On this occasion, the campaign opted for a photobook, a genre that, despite the growth in public interest, is still at the fringes of the publishing world. Last year, the Books for Factories initiative received the National Prize for the Promotion of Reading awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport.

This initiative’s main objective is to promote reading as a fundamental part of Garnica’s social responsibility; after all, workers spend a third of their lives there. The initiative also seeks to train labor leaders in the field of promoting reading, encourage workers to establish short- and medium-term personal and family reading projects; and, finally, establish the idea that in societies without a culture of reading, we must be advocates of reading in our own social circles.