Focus IBBY

Focus IBBY Carolina Ballester (bio) It has been a busy start of the year for IBBY. Preparation for the 2024 awards are underway, calls are being launched, and books are being sent and received to feed IBBY's great collections. Sadly, 2023 also brought moments of turmoil—a war still raging in Ukraine; civil unrest in Iran, Peru, and many more countries; and natural disasters in Anatolia and eastern Africa. Focus IBBY thus chooses to highlight various readingpromotion projects developed throughout our IBBY network. Yamada Fund The IBBY-Yamada fund has provided grants to projects aimed at promoting reading and access to books to children in all parts of the world since 2006. After two tumultuous years of the COVID-19 pandemic hampering the implementation of some projects, all the selected initiatives in 2022 managed to run as planned in Armenia, Cameroon, Cuba, France, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru, and Zimbabwe. For 2023, the following projects have been granted funding. IBBY Argentina Primeros favoritos (First Favorites) Reading program through a literary competition where children ages four to six act as juries and evaluate books together with their teachers. IBBY Armenia Defenders of every child's right to become a reader: the great role of librarians in creating readers Workshop for librarians with foreign specialists. IBBY Cuba "Children, as soon as they can think, must think..." International workshop for reading promoters as part of the Leer el XXI regional conference. IBBY Haiti Reading programmes for displaced children Bibliotherapy with children from displaced families due to gang-related violence. IBBY Lebanon Library for refugees Renovation of a library and training in library practice and bibliotherapy for educators of the Jusoor center for Syrian children refugees in Lebanon. [End Page 81] IBBY Malaysia Literature Therapy for Malaysian Underprivileged Children Training workshop for teachers, volunteers, librarians, and social workers working with underprivileged children in Selangor (west coast) and Terengganu (east coast). IBBY Mongolia Building a network and increasing the capacity of children's reading promoters in Mongolia Creating awareness of children's reading and providing training to reading promoters, experienced or beginners. IBBY Nepal My environment, a clean environment Creating awareness among children of the proper management of waste plastic in urban areas through books. IBBY Zimbabwe Enhancing children's reading rights through drama Production of five audio and radio dramas to introduce local stories to children via community radio stations. Regular updates about the 2023 projects will be provided on the IBBY website. The projects supported by the Yamada Fund are developed by the IBBY National Sections, very often in close partnership with other local or international organizations. They are submitted to the IBBY Executive Committee once a year for approval upon the recommendation of its project subcommittee, which is currently formed by Sunjidmaa Jamba, Elena Pasoli, Doris Breitmoser, Ingrid Källström, and Denis Beznosov. IBBY Sections can apply for funding until July 15, 2023, for projects to be developed in 2024. Children in Crisis: New Projects and Ongoing Initiatives In the convulsed world we live in today, the number of projects embraced by the Children in Crisis Fund has increased. Designed to provide relief through books to children whose lives have been disrupted by wars, civil unrest, and natural disasters, the fund currently supports projects in Afghanistan, El Salvador, Lebanon, and Palestine and at the US-Mexico border, in addition to three new initiatives developed in the past twelve months. Books Give Refuge: Work with Ukrainian Refugee Children in Poland In March 2022, IBBY made an appeal to support the Fundacja Powszechnego Czytania (Universal Reading Foundation—URF), a Polish organization engaged in working with Ukrainian refugee children in Poland under the slogan #BooksGiveRefuge. Owing to individual donations and [End Page 82] solidarity from several IBBY National Sections, funds are being channeled toward this project via the Children in Crisis Fund. IBBY contacted Maria Deskur, CEO of the Universal Reading Foundation, to inquire about the latest developments of the project. Carolina Ballester (IBBY): How do you work on the ground with children and families of refugees? Maria Deskur (URF): With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the Universal Reading Foundation launched a fundraiser to donate books to traumatized children, as well...