Support a Library To Empower Refugees in Camp

In our office ‘OpenSpace’ Starfish Foundation has started an animated board games nights open to all: refugees, volunteers and locals. Once a week for two hours.  So far more than twenty people have come together to play and have fun. This is an opportunity for everyone to meet and erase cultural and linguistic barriers around simple games: Uno, cards, chess, dominoes, etc.

A big thank you to #Ravensburger who kindly donated board games. They sent us many board games for kids and adults. Those will be very useful during our games night every Thursday evening from 5:30PM to 7.30PM. 

We have discovered a Persian Bookstore in Germany called Forough Book. Now we can order more books in Farsi (language spoken mainly in Afghanistan and Iran) and they will give us some donations. A big thank you also to the NGOs Eudemonia and Eurorelief who have recently given us many books and thus participate to the continuity of our activities on the field. We have also started exchanging books with the camp schools to help with language learning for the children and adults attending classes in the camps.
                                                                      
Starfish has a new volunteer in the OpenSpace library who was once a refugee. He speaks many languages including Farsi, which will greatly facilitate the reception and processing of Farsi books. He will also help organize a more conducive space for reading and relaxation.

Finally, the last 2 months have been very positive. More than a hundred books have been lent out. A large majority of them are books for adults in Farsi, English and Arabic and many of them are also German and English learning books as well as fiction books. 

We are still actively looking for Somali books as the Somali population in the camp is growing and the demand is increasing.

Thank you again for your support!

Our Multilingual Library has continued to operate on Lesvos for refugees and locals despite the challenge presented by harsh winter weather. The last month has brought incredibly cold and rainy winter weather to Lesvos, but our project continued to open at OpenSpace in Mytilene and in Mavrovouni camp on most days. At the same time, it has been an exciting time for the project as it will soon benefit from a container inside Mavrovouni Camp whilst we have also received numerous book donations.

Our mobile library services will be housed in a container located inside the new Education Hub of the camp and will provide multiple benefits for all. It will also serve as a new permanent site for the mobile part of the project providing greater flexibility and the possibility to deliver more activities for children and adults. We will keep you updated once we begin operating from the new home. 

We were also delighted to receive a number of fantastic donations of new books over the past few weeks which will help maintain stock for 2022. With thanks to Book Aid International, Refugees4Refugees, The School of Peace and to a local contact who sourced books from the French Institute in Greece. We are still in urgent need of Somali and Farsi books so if you, or anyone you know, can support. Please do get in touch at : library@asterias-starfish.org.