The ILAB Pop Up Week 2016 starts with a generous donation! AbeBooks, a strong supporter of the ILAB Pop Up Celebrations 2015 and again in 2016 - announces to donate US$ 2.500 towards ILAB's project to help fund UNESCO's and American actors Forest Whitakers vital literacy work in South Sudan.
South Sudan is a troubled place indeed. 70 % of all adults and 84 % of women are illiterate. Help and hope are very urgently needed. UNESCO and the Forest Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative (WPDI) bring help and hope to South Sudan by building a network of youth peace workers across the country which is stunning in its simplicity, power and inspiration. Literacy – schools and books – are a central part of what Forest Whitaker and his passionate team are building. On UNESCO Work Book and Copyright Day, 23 April 2016, the ILAB booksellers will once again show their support worldwide with a global fundraising campaign.
Last year ILAB booksellers raised well over 10,000 Euros, which bought 1,930 books and 500 pens and paper for the South Sudanese children – delivered by UNESCO's Forest Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative. With another great chain of ILAB Pop Up Events spanning from Australia to Asia, Africa, all over Europe and the United States on 23 April, the ILAB booksellers will raise even more money in 2016! One big step to achieve this goal has been done today through the announcement of AbeBooks to join in ILAB’s celebrations with enormous public support and a donation of US$ 2.500.
"This generous donation by AbeBooks will make a real difference to the children in South Sudan". ILAB President Norbert Donhofer says. "In affluent countries it is so easy to take books and literacy for granted. However for those of us who work with books everyday of our lives, we realise that the debt we owe to those who taught us to read and to the early books we read from is incalcuable. We are indebted to AbeBooks for getting behind the ILAB booksellers and UNESCO in their work towards a more literate world."
For the second time in 2016, ILAB booksellers throughout the world booksellers will once again hold Pop Up Book Fairs on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day, 23 April, where they will display posters depicting Empty Bookcases and invite visitors to mark the day by "buying" a symbolic spine. Spine by spine the bookcases will be filled. Spine by spine literacy will get closer to reality for a child in South Sudan.
FOLLOW US LIVE ... ILAB POP UP BOOK FAIRS ... ACROSS THE WORLD ... ON UNESCO WORLD BOOK & COPYRIGHT DAY ... 23 APRIL 2016!
April 2016 – For immediate release. Pictures: ILAB, UNESCO, AbeBooks
As one of the organisers of ILAB’s world of Pop Up rare book events on April 23 I find I spend quite a lot of time caught up in organising printing, answering questions of the inspiring ILAB affiliates worldwide who are the local organisers, writing material and also being a local organiser myself. It is difficult to keep clear focus on the true priorities of the day at times.
However one priority that keeps playing on my mind of late is raising enough money on April 23 to really make some significant difference to literacy in South Sudan. The Forest Whitaker Initiative for Peace and Development is the UNESCO backed program that booksellers around the world are working to raise money for. Of course I realised that if UNESCO said this programme was important and Forest Whitaker was their ambassador in South Sudan, it must be doing good but then I saw the video… This video says very clearly that literacy is at the root of justice and world peace and it really came home to me. Our work raising money for literacy was not just to change the life of a child or even a family but potentially a whole nation and beyond! I had to do my very, very best to make sure ILAB’s donations are greater this year than the laudable 10,000 Euros we raised in 2015.
I thought back to the discussions Barbara and I first had about how ILAB should celebrate UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day. We were charged with the brief of raising awareness of the antiquarian bookselling trade and decided that the best way to do this was to leave our “natural habitat” and show rare books to people who might not even realise that they exist. So why not go to a really unexpected place?
My local gym, Curves Belconnen, in a local suburban shopping centre seemed particularly unexpected! They often run charity fundraisers but what would they make of ILAB and the Empty Bookcase poster? I talked to the owner Anita and asked her what she thought about it and she was very interested and keen. Two days ago the poster was attached to their wall, with some explanatory text about both ILAB and the Forest Whitaker Initiative for Peace and Development. Within minutes symbolic spines had been bought by the women who attend the gym, were attached to the Empty Bookcase and within just 2 days several hundred dollars has been raised. The enthusiasm of Anita and her staff is humbling. I have been very moved and impressed. People are asking questions about South Sudan of course but also asking about the antiquarian bookselling world. Sometimes taking the unexpected to new places has unexpectedly good results for all concerned! Maybe there is somewhere near you that is very unexpected too!
JOIN US ... ORGANIZE IT ... ILAB POP UP BOOK FAIRS ... ACROSS THE WORLD ... ON UNESCO WORLD BOOK & COPYRIGHT DAY ... 23 APRIL 2016!
April 2016 – For immediate release. Pictures: ILAB, UNESCO, the Organizers, Curves Belconnen
… lies next to Viennaat Dr. Paul Kainbacher Rare Bookson UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day 2016. With a Bibliophile Evening dedicated to lectures and books on travel and exploration from Austria into the world the Austrian antiquarian booksellers will launch the ILAB Pop Up Week on 16 April 2016, from 5 to 7 pm. Paul Kainbacher invites colleagues and collectors to his bookshop in Baden (Vienna), where Walter Sauer and Martin Peter Pfitscher of the University of Vienna will talk about famous 19th century travels of Austrian adventurers to Africa. Joseph Conrad’s well-known novel “Heart of Darkness” leads directly into Central Africa during the time of the Belgian colonization. Walter Sauer, Professor of Economic and Social History, compares Conrad’s stories with the experiences of Austrians, who travelled to Central Africa or lived there at that time. By chance, the Vienna born explorer Oscar Baumann became a photographer in 1892 through a generous gift: he was given a Kodak camera which enabled him to take pictures of the country and the people he met on his travels in search of the source of the Nile, and later during his time as an ambassador in Sansibar. In the second lecture, Martin Peter Pfitscher, specialist in Ethnology, will show Africa through the lense of Oscar Baumann, while Paul Kainbacher will close the Bibliophile Evening with a book presentation and a fundraising to support the great work of UNESCO's Forest Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative (WPDI) in South Sudan.
A HIGH-FLYING BOOK PRESENTATION ...
… in the Giant Ferris Wheel of the world-famous Prater will be the next step in the ILAB Pop Up Celebrations in Vienna on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day 2016 – certainly one of the ultimate highlights of the day. The Giant Ferris Wheel is Vienna at its best. Built in 1897 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Emperor Franz Josef I., a circular trip on one of the most significant and fascinating steel constructions worldwide with a unique view of the city of Vienna, is an absolute cultural and architectural must for every visitor to Austria's capital. So if you haven't taken a ride on the Giant Ferris Wheel and enjoyed the breathtaking views over the roofs of Vienna, this is your once in a lifetime experience.
On 23 April, from 10 am to noon, the members of the Austrian Antiquarian Booksellers' Association will take you on a trip high above Vienna while offering rare and fine books in one of the wheel cabins and raising money to buy school books for the children in South Sudan.
And who knows who will be sitting in the wheel cabin next to you? A Viennese woman like Marie Kindl who hung herself outside a cabin during a ride on a rope she held between her teeth in the year 1898? Madame Solange d`Atalide, a late 19th century horsewoman sitting on a horse on the roof of one of the cabins? Or, maybe, Orson Welles' Third Man meeting Holly Martins aka Joseph Cotton and listening to the famous zither tunes by Anton Karas ...
JOIN US ... ORGANIZE IT ... ILAB POP UP BOOK FAIRS ... ACROSS THE WORLD ... ON UNESCO WORLD BOOK & COPYRIGHT DAY ... 23 APRIL 2016!
WHY ARE ILAB BOOKSELLERS HOLDING POP UP FAIRS ACROSS THE WORLD ON 23 APRIL 2016?
“Peace is not something that exists on a piece of paper. True peace is created in the hearts, minds, and actions of women and men. True peace will exist when all citizens of South Sudan sincerely accept each other, respect each other, and can start honest and open dialogues with one another to resolve their differences amicably. True peace will only exist when the 10,000 children and youths who participated in this conflict are given the education they deserve and helped to re-integrate into society ...”
Forest Whitaker
“I’m really full of hope because I am giving hope”, says Valentino Okongo, Youth Peace Maker, South Sudan.
South Sudan is a country that is not often associated with hope so when a young South Sudanese man, orphaned by the war, speaks of hope, how can we NOT help?
South Sudan has a great deal of potential – just have a look at UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Forest Whitaker’s work in South Sudan … Inspiring isn’t it? The Forest Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative (WPDI) is building a network of youth peace workers across South Sudan which is stunning in its simplicity, power and inspiration. Literacy is a central part of what he and his passionate team are building. When you learn the South Sudanese literacy rates – 70 % of all adults are illiterate and 84 % of women – it doesn’t take much convincing to know that literacy is a vital part of their initiative.
“Can we write a new story for South Sudan?” asks Brian Williams WPDI Conflict Resolution Expert in a video on WPDI’s work. When you watch him working, when you listen to the Youth Peace Makers, when you see Forest Whitaker in the video it is difficult to think anything but YES!
So how can we, antiquarian booksellers, collectors or librarians in a world so very, very different from the one experienced by South Sudanese help?
Just a little money goes a long way in South Sudan. ILAB booksellers raised over 10,000 Euros at the ILAB Pop Up Book Fairs on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day in 2015. What good did this do? 500 South Sudanese young people were given a prized notebook and pen (because these items are prized there) and 1,930 books were placed in 10 centres of the Forest Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative. That’s a lot of young people who were helped in their journey of hope. The following chapter on “Promoting Connectivity and Education” from the official 2015 WPDI Report shows where this journey shall lead to:
“Education opens doors to new worlds of knowledge and opportunities. But in communities impacted by violence and poverty, young people often do not have access to the educational resources they need to lift themselves out of these vicious cycles. WPDI is constructing a network of Community Learning Centers (CLCs) in EES to serve as hubs for education, technology, and civic engagement where all are welcome. In 2015 - in coordination with our partners and local authorities - we opened two CLCs in Torit and Nimule, and renovated three additional sites for CLCs in Kapoeta North, South, and East, scheduled to open in January 2016. WPDI plans to renovate and open four more CLCs in 2016, so community members in every county of EES will have access to these resources.
Thanks to Ericsson and Zain, all of the CLCs are equipped with hardware and connectivity, so community members throughout EES are able to access the Internet. ICTs have transformed how humans communicate and access information. But, while 82 percent of individuals in developed countries use the Internet, in South Sudan, only 15 percent do. In fragile communities like those in EES, we believe that ICTs can be tremendous assets that empower women and men to tap into the world’s entire collection of knowledge, to connect with others in their communities and around the world, and to participate in conversations as informed global citizens. WPDI staff offers daily computer trainings for community members to provide them with valuable job skills and allow them to explore and interact with the online world, giving these individuals access to a vast array of knowledge and educational resources.
The CLCs also house small libraries, where community members can check out books and develop their literacy skills. In South Sudan, illiteracy among both adults and youths is still widespread - 73 percent of the population over the age of 15 cannot read or write. There is also a significant literacy gap between men and women because of cultural pressures that sometimes force girls out of school at an early age. Our CLCs are committed to spreading a love of reading. Each center houses a library and, in collaboration with UNESCO, holds regular literacy classes, many of which are targeted specifically toward women.
On April 23, 2015 - World Book and Copyright Day - UNESCO and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) partnered to support WPDI’s efforts to promote literacy in South Sudan. ILAB members held 30 pop-up book fairs in twelve countries to raise money for CLC libraries. These fairs - held around the world in schools, train stations, restaurants, pubs, schools, museums, and skyscrapers - raised more than 10,000 Euros. As of January 2016, ILAB and UNESCO have provided more than 1500 books and hundreds of pieces of scholarly materials to CLCs in South Sudan. These books fill the shelves of the centers’ libraries and are used during literacy classes.
The two CLCs established in Torit and Nimule are proving to be incredibly popular - each center is routinely visited by more than 200 people every month. The ToTs and other YPN members are using the centers as headquarters for their recruitment and community-building projects. In a field adjacent to our center in Nimule, a girls’ soccer team has been established and holds weekly practices. Our vision for these centers is that they not only serve as locations for literacy classes and computer access, but also as vibrant hubs of community life where individuals can gather to participate in a wide range of activities and civic discourse.”
10,000 Euros from ILAB booksellers and book collectors worldwide for 500 notebooks and pens and 1,930 books in 10 WPDI centres was a good start in 2015 – and it is far from being enough. That’s why ILAB booksellers will stand up again on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day, 23 April 2016, to raise even more money for this entirely important project. The children in South Sudan need our help, they deserve to learn, to read and to lead a better life in the future. So, there is still a lot more to do. Let us give our vital support to the UNESCO, the Forest Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative and most of all to the children in South Sudan with another giant chain of books presented on ILAB Pop Up Book Fairs from Australia, to Korea, Japan, South Africa, all over Europe and to the United States.
When? On UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day, 23 April 2016.
Where? Across the world.
Join Us!
Booksellers take part in a Pop Up event – collectors and librarians visit these events.
In just a few hours or with just a little money you can give so much hope.
