Making Reading a Tool for Empowerment

In the United States, the hardening political debate on immigration is accentuating the vulnerability of many already marginalized families. At the same time, many remain deprived of regular access to books and reading. The hardest hit combine economic insecurity, language barriers and housing instability. Their children are also those who own the fewest books and see themselves least represented in the stories offered to them. The LIFT program aims to reach these audiences far removed from conventional learning arrangements. Children can leave with books and take part in activities, while their parents are accompanied and directed to local resources, notably public libraries. Concretebridges are thus created to facilitate their frequentation and make them familiar places. The aim is clear: ensure that every child grows up surrounded by books and develops a lasting relationship with reading. Today, thanks to your support, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières programs already reach 400,000 beneficiariesevery year around the world. Behind this figure, there arethousands of children, as in the United States, who rediscover a taste for learning, discover new stories and open up to new perspectives thanks to books.

After the earthquake in Morocco's High Atlas region in 2023, thousands of children found themselves deprived of school and access to educational resources. In these already isolated territories, the disaster further accentuated inequalities in access to culture. Faced with this situation, BSF is mobilizing to bring culture to children living in remote areas, where educational infrastructures are weakened or non-existent. With its local partners, the association deploys devices adapted to the realities on the ground to get as close as possible to children: it sets up mobile, modular spaces to create cultural venues where they are non-existent, develops local libraries to put books back into the hands of young people, and offers autonomous digital solutions giving access to a wide range of educational and cultural content, even without an Internet connection. The aim: to reduce cultural isolation, support learning and offer children opportunities for discovery and escape, despite geographical constraints and the consequences of the crisis.