Finally I attended a keynote panel that featured people who have made it their lifetime goal to bring books to children around the world. It was an interesting session that brought me back to the school library that I work in. We are so fortunate to have so many resources, books, a budget... Thank goodness for people like this who work so hard for those who have so little.
Yohannes spoke about Ethiopia Reads and gave some background on himself and his organization. Since I had lunch with him and we had talked about project ideas, I was especially interested in his background and ways to help. I shared this information with my students to get them more excited about our project. Read my lunch entry on this blog to find out more about our project.
The ideas of these speakers all connected towards the difficulty and expense of bringing books to children around the world. They also agreed that it is an important mission and all children deserve the opportunity to read and look at books. Bringing books and libraries to developing countries is quite a challenge especially as the world economy is suffering at this point in time.
As I finished my day at this conference, I began to think about what I can do. Encouraging children to look at international books is a start. Organizing projects with a global perspective has been my theme these last 2 years. Starting our project with the 5th graders and bringing stories to other parts of the world is another way for the students at my school to see that we can help. Many projects and ideas came from this conference and have already affected many children. This iBBy conference was an amazing experience. There's so much to learn and do!!!!
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