Research Information:FOCUS ON AFRICA


pop-up All hail the


library


Sarah Glazer introduces Libraries Without Borders, which is having a huge impact on learning in the developing world


W


hen refugees from the Congo rioted over drastically reduced food rations at Burundi’s Kavumu refugee camp earlier this year, they left one barrack


unharmed amid their stone throwing. The building they spared contained a portable library – for many refugees their only contact with books or the outside world. The library had arrived in a cleverly constructed box on wheels, which unfolded in 20 minutes to reveal desks, chairs, laptop computers, books, e-readers and video camera equipment. Known as the ‘Ideas Box’, the brightly coloured boxes had been delivered by a Paris-based charity, Libraries Without Borders, providing an oasis of learning in the camp.


According to the staff of Libraries Without 22 Research Information AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015


Borders, many of the young people throwing stones depended upon the library to access their Facebook accounts, as well as films and books. Many had participated in its clubs, organised around reading, ‘slam poetry’ and making videos.


Immigration expert Patrick Weil, a historian at the University of Paris who founded Libraries Without Borders, told the story of how the refugees protected the Ideas Box at a panel discussion in London. The panel, part of a UK launch for Libraries Without Borders at the Institut Français (French Institute of London), also featured writers Ian McEwan, Lisa Appignanesi and Kenan Malik. Weil said he first got the idea for the organisation seven years ago while travelling in Africa to refugee camps. Although the camps provided food and shelter, they offered


‘nothing about intellectual recovery’, he


recalled. The camps he visited were devoid of education or reading material – a bleak existence when you consider the median length of stay in many of these camps can be as much as 17 years, he said.


‘What we miss most is culture,’ a young man who fled civil conflict in the Congo says in a documentary filmed at a Burundi refugee camp, which was shown at the event. At first, Weil envisioned a traditional book collection drive that would send second-hand books from individual donors in France to refugee camps in Africa. And in fact Libraries Without Borders continues that activity today, maintaining a warehouse with 400,000 books, catalogued and ready to be sent to needy parts of the world.


Following the devastating 2010 earthquake @researchinfo www.researchinformation.info


Libraries Without Borders


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40