New Program: We Need Books

“People may go to the library looking mainly for information, but they find each other there.”
– Robert Putnam

Nadir and Ioanna

We are proud to introduce We Need Books, a new organization that has joined Humanitarian Social Innovations.

We Need Books is an Athens-based NGO that works to build libraries containing multicultural spaces to educate and aid the marginalized and vulnerable populations such as the approximately 55,000 refugees and migrants living in Greece.

Over the past year, We Need Books has collected more than 2,000 books, created small libraries, participated in conferences, and begun fundraising.

Background

We Need Books was created in 2015 by Ioanna Nissiriou and Nadir Noori. Ioanna grew up in Athens, Greece, and became a producer and eventually head of production for MTV and Nickelodeon. Seeing the refugee crisis unfold in 2015, she left the industry and volunteered to help. Nadir lived in Afghanistan, but fled as a refugee at 12 years old to escape Taliban recruitment. He learned to speak, read, and write five languages and works as a translator helping refugees in Greece.

Impact on Refugees

We Need Books has created libraries in the Schisto Refugee Camp and a Catholic Relief Services shelter in Athens. These areas contain hundreds of books in Arabic, Greek, Farsi, Pashto, and English. The books range from educational textbooks to children’s books to cookbooks and everything in between. In addition, they have also collaborated with the Antigone Project and the Melissa Project to give books to women and children refugees, while also holding workshops on library fundraising at the Goethe Institute in Athens.

Future

In the future, We Need Books hopes to design programs and services to serve the needs of the growing and diverse population, and provide work for refugees and migrants at these spaces. They plan to partner with more international institutions and run campaigns for additional fundraising.

Therefore, at HSI we are proud to bring We Need Books into our community to partner with them for maximum impact.

To find out more about We Need Books, visit their website here.

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