Thousands of people living in Athens, refugees and migrants, do not have access to books in their own languages. Being able to read is so important for learning, entertainment, and relaxation. We Need Books is an organization that is doing the doable and providing books and libraries to refugees in Greece and we wanted to help.
We teamed up with our friends Communitere and We Need Books to get the job done.
“We wanted to create a space where everyone can find books in their natural language. An environment that feels like home, where people feel safe to meet and accept each other, exchange ideas and express their feelings and opinions,” said Giorgos, a member of Communitere.
We Need Books is working towards collecting 15,000 books to give to refugees. “There have been 5000 books collected thus far, and the goal is 15,000. The area of focus are books in Arabic, Farsi and Urdu,” said Giorgos.
On Day 333, we gave brand new books written in Urdu, the native language in Pakistan. The new books give the community something to bond over. “…it’s a sense of pride for their cultural heritage, bringing them together despite of their backgrounds so that they can form their own opinions about each other through play and not become the bearers of stereotypes that are passed on to them.”
As the saying goes, readers are leaders – so here’s to raising up more Refugee leaders in Greece!
