by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director
How does a collection of books in Persian, Greek, English, Arabic, German (and more!) pop up in the small northern town of Serres, Greece? We're here to tell you!
Come in and spend some time at the LHI Refugee Center library!
Some Background
Back when we established the LHI Refugee Center in 2016, we had a basket of books that were available to check out. As both our center and also book collection grew, we were able to establish what is now an airy, welcoming space just for the library.
The children’s section is adorable!
It's an impressive operation! The library is a fully cataloged, circulating collection! All of the books are labeled and organized into categories and languages. There's even an adorable children's book section.
The best part is, any resident from the camp can come check out a book!
Books are now available in Persian, Greek, English, Arabic, German, and more!
An Exciting Development
The two camps we work with recently transitioned from Yazidi-only to a mixed population, with most newcomers being Afghans. We needed Persian books for our library, and fast! So our team on the ground put their heads together and made a plan.
They reached out to an Italian organization called Negah, who then put out a call for Persian books. They brought in an incredible number of books from their supporters.
Edu, our education manager (who speaks Farsi!) also reached out to friends. Some books came from a teacher in Finland, others from a bookstore in Geneva, others from Hamburg, from Iran, and from the US.
And a really amazing donation was 10 signed copies of “The Last Girl” from Nadia's Initiative, an org that advocates for survivors of sexual violence and aims to rebuild communities in crisis.
The library now contains several signed copies of “Last Girl!”
In total we've collected more than 400 books in Persian, coming from France, USA, Iran, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, and Italy.
The library at the LHI Refugee Center came about the same way all of our projects do: NETWORKING! Thank you to our team, donors and partner orgs for making this development possible!
Click here to learn more about the programs at our Refugee Center in Greece.