We prioritise sending brand new, carefully selected books to refugees both throughout and beyond Africa, and through the support of our publishing partners we provide books ranging from phonics books in Arabic to fantasy novels to medical texts.

Reaching Syrian refugees in Lebanon

Lebanon hosts more Syrian refugees than any other country except for Turkey. The influx is so profound that refugees now make up 25% of the country’s population of 4.4 million. According to the UN, Lebanon has the highest per-capita concentration of refugees anywhere in the world.

In 2017, we sent 1,899 children’s books including Arabic readers, teacher training manuals and English as a Second Language books to our partner in the country, Jusoor Syria. Jusoor’s mission is to help Syrian youth realize their potential through programs in the fields of education, career development, and global community engagement. These books will give young readers a critical opportunity to keep learning despite their displacement.

Supporting displaced people in Greece

Greece is on the front line of Southern Europe’s refugee crisis. In 2016 nearly 172,000 people arrived in Greece by sea alone. (source) The people arriving from Greece need everything from healthcare to education to shelter.

The books we provide offer the chance to continue an interrupted education, begin learning English or simply escape the challenges of day to day life for a few hours. We are providing books to three NGOs which support refugees in Greece: ECHO Greece, METAdrasi and InterVolve.

So far, we have sent over 1,000 books to our partners, including Arabic phonics readers, English as a Second Language books and leisure reading books.

Reaching some of the world’s largest refugee camps

Dadaab refugee camp, in Garissa Province, Kenya was started in 1992 and and has a population of around 320,000 people. Kakuma refugee camp in Turkana Province, Kenya was established in 1991 and has an estimated population of around 180,000 people. Both camps are amongst the largest and oldest refugee camps in the world.

Windle Trust International – Kenya provides secondary education for all of the refugees in both camps, and we provide books to allow the NGO to create school libraries and community libraries full of beautiful, relevant books that will help refugees succeed in education. Most of the library visitors – from young children to mature students – have no access to books and reading material anywhere else in the camp and the new library provides a rare, reliable and accessible source of information.

The books we provide range from picture books for the children to university level textbooks for students, are literally a lifeline for many people. To date, we have sent well in excess of 100,000 books to the camps.

We also run our Reading for all programme in Kakuma’s primary and secondary schools. Find out more