4/20/2016

SCHOOL BOOKS FOR SOUTH SUDAN: ABEBOOKS AND ILAB FILL "EMPTY BOOKCASES"

A GENEROUS DONATION IN SUPPORT OF LITERACY

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

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