EDUCATION INFORMATION CULTURAL 2017 ANNUAL REPORTDIVERSITY 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY BIBLIOTHÈQUES SANS FRONTIÈRES

Table of Contents Libraries Without Borders (BSF): 10 year anniversary

A WORD FROM OUR CHAIRMAN Patrick Weil - Page 5

AN INTERVIEW WITH OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Jérémy Lachal - Page 7

Overview Page 12 A 10-year Timeline Page 14 Our Tools Page 8 Map Page 24

10 YEARS OF ACTION Page 26 Emergency, post-conflict & peacebuilding Page 28 Education & cultural diversity Page 38 Entrepreneurship & social transformation Page 59

10 YEARS OF ADVOCACY Page 64

10 YEARS OF ACCOUNTABILITY Page 74

3

10 YEARS OF ACTION

to include the intellectual needs of populations in need. Our second area of intervention is reinforcing the role of A Word from libraries as major actors in the fight against inequality and construction of democratic citizenship. Our third area of intervention is promoting social innovation and Our entrepreneurship in library spaces to create economically sustainable models with a strong social impact and Chairman incubators for social projects. Patrick Weil « For 10 years we have

For a decade, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières has worked defended the idea that tirelessly to reinforce the autonomy of the most vulnerable people in the world by improving their access to cultural access to information, education, and culture. Since resources is a fundamental our founding, we have defended the notion that culture is a fundamental human right that promotes autonomy, right as well as a strong critical thought, and democratic civic dialogue. Libraries are epicenters for the material forms that culture takes. promoting agent As such, they are critical to advancing equality in a of freedom, critical thougth world where access to information and education (or their absence) serve as markers of inequality. Whether and democratic dialogue. » material or virtual, static or mobile, public library, Fab Lab, or MakerSpace, the library of the 21st century is first and foremost a communal place for learning, discovery, and creation. It is a place where people can access the tools they need to find answers to the questions that are most relevant to their realities. Libraries are spaces of both To maximize our impact, we rely on our expertise, create individual development and collective exchange, where tools that build off this expertise (e.g. the Ideas Box and people can let their imaginations flourish, build new social IdeasCube), and develop programs such as BSF Campus, relationships or learn to participate in civic life. Code Travelers, or Khan Academy in French. These resources add value to the work our partners are doing Bibliothèques Sans Frontières’ efforts focus on three on-the-ground. As facilitators, we aim not to interfere in types of interventions that illustrate the diverse impact the work of our team and partners in the field, but rather of libraries. Our first area of intervention is humanitarian work beside them to magnify their impact and bring their emergencies, post-conflict settings, and peacebuilding services to the people who need them most. contexts. In these cases, we focus on providing psychosocial support, protection and educational opportunities to vulnerable groups. On a macro level, we work to broaden traditional notions of humanitarian aid « As facilitators, we aim providing services to those in need, BSF also advocates to ensure that libraries always have a place in the public not to interfere in the work debate, both in France and internationally. For instance, our Ouvrons + Les Bibliothèques campaign resulted in concrete of our team and partners changes on behalf of both the French government and local institutions, which led to expanded opening hours at in the field, but rather work French libraries. Similarly, our l’Urgence de Lire campaign beside them served as a worldwide call to put culture and education at to magnify their impact the heart of humanitarian aid efforts. While BSF has grown very quickly over the past decade, and bring their services we have remained true to the principles on which the to the people who need organization was founded. As we strive to innovate, we will also continue to foster autonomy and resilience and them most. » promote democratic engagement in civic life among the people with whom we work. In his lovely ode to libraries published in the New York Times, Indian author Mahesh Rao reminded us of journalist Sophie Mayer’s description of libraries as “the ideal model of society, the best possible shared space,” where “each person is pursuing their own aim (education, entertainment, affect, rest) with respect For the past ten years, we have supported more than to others, through the best possible medium of the 500 libraries and trained over 3,000 librarians around transmission of ideas, feelings and knowledge — the book.” the world, supporting five million beneficiaries. With Bibliothèques Sans Frontières will continue to expand over 50 Ideas Box projects implemented in emergency access to these transformative spaces to the corners of the and post-conflict settings, we have given nearly 50,000 world that need it most. refugees access to tools that can help them rebuild their lives and prepare for the future. With more than 2 million people using Khan Academy in French, 70 people enrolled in the Code Travelers program, and nearly 20 Ideas Box projects deployed in French territories abroad, we are fighting inequality on multiple fronts, especially in terms of access to education and culture. In addition to

Ideas Box deployed in the French city of Marseille with local partner Acelem - March 2017 © Acelem/Marseille

6 10 YEARS OF ACTION

In 2013, we started investing ourselves more in digital material, particularly digital education. This was another Interview major turning point for BSF. By adapting Khan Academy in French and launching the Code Travelers program, we hoped to change the role of libraries in the 21st Century. with the By providing free access to information and developing innovative learning strategies, libraries are powerful tools Executive for transforming societies. Thanks to their mobility, digital literacy programs are now at the heart of our intervention Director strategy in both France and around the world. Today, over 2 million people are registered on the French Khan Academy, Jérémy Lachal while every month, new Code Travelers clubs are created in France and abroad.

Over the course of 10 years, BSF has gone through Lastly, I’d like to mention a founding partnership in the quite an evolution. What has shaped BSF into the history of BSF, which we established 8 years ago with the organization it is today? Center for Reading and Cultural Action (CLAC) in Yaoundé. This associative cultural center does remarkable work The key moment in BSF’s history was the terrible throughout Cameroon and its founder, Charles Kamdem, earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince, Haïti in January succeeded in putting culture at the center of a project for 2010. As an organization, we realized the fundamental economic and human development in that African nation. role libraries could play in crisis situations. We will never This partnership has been particularly enriching for BSF be able to sufficiently thank our Haitian partners, who because the CLAC made us think about the entrepreneurial inspired us to work in displaced person camps. They are dimension necessary for libraries in the developing the ones who silenced critics of the necessity of libraries world. Together, we experimented with models of social in times of crisis. Experience has shown us the importance entrepreneurship to guarantee the libraries’ sustainability of libraries when everything has collapsed. The immense and built the conditions to ensure that access to education success of our makeshift libraries, got us interested in and information would be as widespread as possible. The the context of humanitarian aid and made us realize that wonderful work we did together led us to create the BSF culture, education, means of communication and access to Campus program, which trains librarians in West Africa for information are often forgotten when it comes to providing social entrepreneurship, and to think of a project for Ideas aid to those in need. Based on this experience, we launched Boxes deployed by social entrepreneurs all throughout the Urgence de Lire campaign and, with the help of Philippe Senegal. Starck, created the Ideas Box. We later intervened in the African Great Lakes region, the Middle East and European refugee camps. We most recently intervened in Colombia in regard to the ongoing peace negotations with the Farcs. .

7 In 2017, what remains of the organization you helped delicate work of building shared visions with our partners. found in 2007? This complexity is what makes our work so fascinating.

BSF has considerably evolved in 10 years. Gradually, the organization has, become more impactful, and deeper. Still, At the heart of BSF’s mandate is reinforcing autonomy what is most important remains. and the most vulnerable persons’ agency. How can we pursue this mission in contexts as diverse as the First, our vision. The unique conception we have of the peacebuilding process in Colombia, the Syrian crisis role of libraries, culture, education, and information in the in the Middle east, or in low-income neighborhoods in development of humans and society. The more we grow, France? the firmer my belief grows that libraries are wonderful tools for reducing inequalities and favoring autonomy, The world is undergoing massive changes: social and freedom, and citizenship, and that cultural diversity is an economic crises, the rise of cultural isolationism, increasing incredible asset in building tomorrow’s world. inequalities and new risks tied to digitalization and Internet, the historical magnitude of forced displacements Then, there is our original pioneering spirit. We threw due to conflict, natural disasters and climate change. In this ourselves headfirst into this adventure, hoping to context, information and education are becoming major tackle issues, invent new models, deconstruct and then markers of inequality. We are still unsure as to how to reconstruct book donations which, at the time, were one take them into account when calculating a state’s wealth, of the only real forms of cultural cooperation existing from but it is becoming increasingly essential to determine a France to Africa. Innovation is at the heart of BSF and population’s ability to answer major modern challenges, shapes our daily work. It forces us to constantly leave our and to anticipate and prevent them. comfort zones, experiment, and try new methods, because we are persuaded that today’s constraints require new Of course, all these situations are incomparable and we solutions. Without throwing everything out, of course, we will never work in the same way with a teenager from the also listen to, are inspired by, and build close ties to the rough neighborhoods of Marseille than with a family of most conventional actors. refugees that has fled the bombings in Mosul. Still, libraries are a valuable resource because they are both spaces for Finally, there is the strategic action we adopted from the individual development and spaces for creating social beginning. That not to replace, but to support and work side ties, and developing community ties and citizenship. In by side. We never wanted to create libraries in our name, in that way, they can play a major role in both peacebuilding Africa or elsewhere. We believe that is the least solution for in Colombia, sending lost generations of young Syrian projects’ sustainability and local appropriation. That is why refugees back to school, and creating spaces for citizenship we prefer to consider ourselves facilitators, catalysts that and social initiative in low-income French neighborhoods. allow field players to expand our impact. This position is not an easy one to explain to wider audiences and donors; We have never needed libraries as much as we do today. neither is our daily work, intercultural relations, and the That is the meaning of our action: not simply to create or strengthen libraries where they are, but also to raise awareness of the ways in which they transform millions of people’s lives. We are constantly looking to help the « We originally threw political and administrative ecosystem evolve, to transform ourselves into this norms and position libraries as actors for change. adventure, hoping to clear the way, invent new models, deconstruct and then rebuild book donations. »

8 10 YEARS OF ACTION

The global advocacy we are leading naturally has independently and have sought to bring new practices to specificities. Our methods are specialized depending on sectors which were undergoing profound changes. This whether we are trying to change human aid norms to was the case from the beginning with public libraries, which give culture and education more importance in crises, or we reimagined from our position as actors from civilian trying to convince French political leaders to make libraries society. It was also the case more recently with the human a central concern. But they are founded on the same idea aid sectors, which have evolved considerably these last that libraries are a wonderful toolbox that allow the most few years and appear increasingly open to the dimensions vulnerable populations to build answers to the problems defended by BSF. they face, and allow citizens to bond around culture. In reality, the major challenge lies in the quality of the tools and methodologies we create. We are not “Ikea without borders,” our job is not to produce Ideas Boxes « Libraries are centers or KoomBooks, but to develop structured responses to the issues of access to information and education which of research and access the populations we work with face. We believe BSF’s value to information, places of resides in our ability to build projects, from identifying needs and areas of intervention to implementing innovative interpretation and unders- activities which answer those needs, while defining specific goals and plans of action. Many partners see the value of tanding the complexity of our work: whether libraries or communities in France or the world. » the National Library of Colombia, these partners do not only come to BSF for an Ideas Box, but so that we may accompany them in the implementation of their action. This is how BSF reaches one of its fundamental goals: innovating educational and cultural practices of actors Since 2016, we have been speaking of three major axes throughout the world. To do so, the interaction of these of intervention for BSF: “emergency, post-conflict and three axes is an important factor. peace building,” “education and cultural diversity,” and “social innovation.” How do these three axes, which require very different kinds of expertise, interact within BSF?

We did indeed rationalize our interventional structure in 2016, by reordering our actions around these three major axes which are more tied to the culture with which we affiliate ourselves than to real strategic frameworks. Intervention in emergency and post-conflict situations first of all, which has become a major part of our intervention and humanitarian aid; access to culture and education next, which in France may be interpreted as a 2.0 approach to popular education, by combining digital literacy, cultural diversity, and citizenship; and, finally, social innovation, which pertains to the world of social entrepreneurship to invent new models for libraries in the developing world, which are real labs for innovation or fablabs.

It is a challenge for these several cultures to interact within one organization, but it is also what makes our strength and ability to innovate. We have always refused to work

9 Number of countries of intervention, diversification of in other zones (such as Ethiopia and Australia). We are projects, growing budget from year to year, increase of permanently reaching for this compromise to resist paid staff: these are all organizational challenges for institutionalization while continuing to grow and increase BSF. How does the organization manage them? our impact.

The intense growth we have undergone these past few What will BSF look like in 10 years? years is a real challenge, particularly from a human standpoint. Just a few years ago BSF was a small family, That is an important and beautiful question. Due to the and now we have almost 100 team members! The explosion uncertainties our world is undergoing, I should answer in the number of our projects provoked a massive increase cautiously. It is hard to say what the planet will look like of our team and a necessary transformation of the way in 10 years. The perspectives that we can distinguish make in which we work. This can sometimes lead to a loss of it hard for me to be optimistic, even though access to adaptability and agility, as well as a few human difficulties. Internet is progressing and the global population has never This is frustrating, but also a fascinating challenge. We are been as informed as now. Still, referendums and recent constantly learning how to adapt to teamwork and how to elections have shown us how much this information can be take care of each other, whether there are 100 or 15 of us.

We have considerably reinforced our organization these « Our job is not to last few months, and our priorities for 2017 are once again integrating the construction of several new structures, simply build Ideas Box kits whether for our internal organization, decision-making or KoomBooks, process, or the development of our international network. Each time, we try to create stable frameworks for the future but to develop structured while conserving our flexibility and remaining realistic. For instance, we decided to concentrate on a few key areas responses to the issues where we have created offices (Middle East, Europe, Latin of access to information America, North America, African Great Lakes, West Africa) but are not excluding the possibility of experimenting and education which the populations we work with must face. »

10 10 YEARS OF ACTION

The Ideas Box in the French city of Calais - March 2016 © BSF selective or distorted, and how easily it can be manipulated. BSF must progressively go from an organization that leads This makes me believe that libraries still have long and projects to a platform for innovative services, an interface fruitful years ahead of them. They are places of mediation, in the ecosystem, a catalyst for change that will support training, support for research, and access to knowledge and actors in their implementation of innovative projects. This information; places of interpretation and comprehension of does not mean that BSF will no longer lead projects, far the world’s complexity. from it. But we will reevaluate our model and positioning. We must, in this context, reinforce our technical expertise, You can count on us to continue advocating for libraries our ability to create, accompany and lead communities of in the next 10 years, to promote their unique role in the practices, to produce quality tools, content, and services decisive moment we are currently in. For a quick sketch for all those that participate in the fight to give the of what I would like to see in 10 years, I would say: an most vulnerable populations access to information and international convention that makes access to culture and education. This also means learning how to better convince, information a pillar of interventions in humanitarian and how to create coalitions of actors to advocate for us, and post-conflict situations, millions of families in Africa, Latin how to change norms and policies. America, and Asia using the KoomBook on a daily basis, the same number of local Internet networks for the education These are eminently ambitious objectives. But when I look of children and for sharing contents and play; the 230,000 past my shoulder at the last ten years, I know nothing libraries existing today have become laboratories for social is impossible. I also know that the unforeseen, new innovation where non-profits, enterprises, and collective encounters and our ability to innovate will surely lead us initiatives for community development can emerge; and, towards new horizons which we cannot imagine today! We finally, widely open libraries in France, at the heart of the can allow ourselves this great diversity of action because public cultural policy for decreasing inequalities, and the we are stable in our shared vision and in the coherence of opportunity for every person to find their place in society. our mandate.

To conclude, it is important to remind ourselves that we are not fighting for the organization, as it is not in itself a means, just an end. The most important part is the great causes which we support and which represent so much more than us.

11 Overview A REGIONAL REVIEW OF OUR INTERVENTION STRATEGIES OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS.

Emergency, post-conflict & peacebuilding. Our tools Ideas Box

Khan Academy

BSF Campus • Reinforce the protection, education and the support system for the most vulnerable populations in situations of emergency and post-conflict. KoomBook • Change the standards of humanitarian aid to better take into account the intellectual needs of populations in danger. Voyageurs du Code

MIDDLE EAST EUROPE Jordan | Lebanon | Iraq Greece | Italy | Germany

AFRICAN GREAT LAKES REGION EAST AFRICA LATIN AMERICA Burundi | Rwanda | Uganda | Kenya | DRC | Ethiopia Colombia Tanzania

12 10 YEARS OF ACTION

Education & cultural Entrepreneurship & diversity Social Transformation

• Reduce inequalities of access to information, • Create models of economically viable education and cultural resources. libraries with a high social impact. • Allow libraries to position themselves as stalwarts • Change the image of librarians so that for democracy and reducing inequalities. they are considered agents of change. • Inspire entrepreneurship through libraries.

EUROPE AMERICAS CAMEROON France | Belgium United States | Haïti Support to the CLAC

AFRIQUE ASIA | PACIFIC WEST AFRICA Cameroun | Burundi | RDC | RCA | Australia | Azerbaijan BSF Campus Sénégal | Tunisie | Madagascar

13 10 year chronology A LOOK BACK AT SOME OF THE DEFINING MOMENTS OF BSF

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

2007 2009 Creation of the Bibliothèques Beginning of a partnership with the Sans Frontières association Center for Reading and Cultural in France. Animation (CLAC) in Yaoundé, Cameroon, to develop its library, train its personnel, create a multimedia space, and create revenue-generating activities. LE CLAC 2008 First edition of the “1 Livre pour 2 Mains” project, allowing young high schoolers from Sevran, France and Bamako, Mali, to meet through slam and poetry. Inauguration of BSF’s logistics base in Mantes-la-Ville, Yvelines, activation of Launch of the “Regard sur le monde” program: support the creation of multilingual our service for collecting books directly libraries in three shelters for asylum seekers in the Île-de-France region. from households. Creation of Libraries Without Borders in2008 the United States.

Train 70 librarians in the Democratic Republic of Congo to manage and 2010 facilitate libraries. Following the earthquake, emergency BSF receives the Grand Prix culturel BOOK mission in Haiti to secure key sites where of the Louis D. Foundation (Institut de Haitian archives and literary heritage France) COLLECTION were stored. Support the creation of libra- ries and secure zones for books in almost 20 displaced person camps. Participate 2011 in the reconstruction public and school libraries throughout the country. Solidarity concert “Haiti one year later, HAITI so that Haitian culture may live on” at the New Morning in Paris.

Renew french language collections in four major Tunisian libraries, which were damaged during the revolution.

14 14 10 YEARS OF ACTION

2012 2013 2014 2015

2012 Launch the “Tournons la page” program: Create animated libraries in homeless shelters throughout the Paris area.

Deploy 300 Story Boxes in displaced person camps around Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Launch the first BiblioTaptap. 2013 IDEAS BOX BIBLIOTAPTAP Create the Ideas Box in collaboration First national collection of books in all with Philippe Starck. Fnac stores in France.

Launch the francophone Khan Academy. Organized the Urgency of Reading symposium in Paris. First presentation of the Ideas Box.

« Ouvrons + les bibliothèques » campaign 2015 International call to action the Urgency for larger opening times of of Reading, supported by over a French public libraries. Birth of the KoomBook.

hundred international intellectuals ••• including 8 Nobel prize winners. Launch projects in the Middle East in response to the Syrian crisis: first Ideas THE URGENCY Box in the Azra refugee camp in Jordan. 2014 OF READING BSF receives the presidential contest Deploy the first Ideas Box kits in “La France S’Engage” for the Ideas Box. Congolese refugee camps in Burundi. Summer camp in the Bronx, New York, Launch the “Code Travelers” program with the Ideas Box. in France. Jérémy Lachal, Executive Director of Transfer the three Haitian BiblioTap- BSF becomes an Ashoka Fellow taps to our local partners.

15 10 YEARS OF ACTION

2016 2017

Deploy an Ideas Box in Senegal for the use of street children in Ziguinchor, 2015 2016 Casamance. First pilot Ideas Box projects Ideas Box Start programs for migrants arriving in KoomBook project for the preservation in France: Paris, Sarcelles, Taverny. Europe by deploying the Ideas Box in of the cultural heritage of the White Greece, Germany, and France. Launch the « Mon Cartable Connecté » Mountain Apache reservation in the project. United States.

Expansion and relocation of BSF HQ to RÉFUGIÉS Close the Young Leaders chapter of the Montreuil, in Seine-Saint-Denis. BSF Campus program: 33 young Africans have been supported in their projects for Launch BSF Campus, a training pro- cultural entrepreneurship. gram for Francophone librarians and social entrepreneurs. Library of Congress Prize in the Unites States and WISE award for the Ideas Box.

20 Ideas Box deployed in 2017 Colombia in the context of the peacebuilding process Create BSF Belgium. BSF and demobilization of the Set up libraries in shelters managed by FARCs. Presented to the CAMPUS the social services in Île-de-France. Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, and the Deploy the Ideas Box in low-income Marseille neighborhoods, in rural areas French President, François in Ille-et-Vilaine and in the Yvelines and Hollande. Bordeaux.

Set up two Ideas Box kits in Burundi refugee camps in Rwanda. BSF and the Pantheon in Paris orga- nize a weekend-long event to promote Development of an Ideas Box dedicated reading and libraries. to health-related issues. BSF reaches 3 million books collected.

16 book collection program GIVING BOOKS A SECOND LIFE

3 million books collected

A 1200m2 warehouse

A catalog containing 75,000 books for partners.

264,767 books donated

A monthly on-site book sale

75 volunteers

Throughout the year, BSF collects books from libraries, publishing houses and individuals. Staff and volunteers sort them out and add them to our vast collection and our online-catalog where partner libraries can select among 75,000 volumes. Books that are not chosen are instead re-sold through book sales, generating revenue to further finance projects and support publishing houses and bookstores in the countries where we work.

SUSTAINABLE ADAPTED CAPACITY-BUILDING RAISING DEVELOPMENT CONTENTS FOR PARTNERS AWARENESS

Provide both free and useful books to allow libraries to flourish. ideas box

THE MULTIMEDIA LIBRARY IN A KIT

Internet connection, 15 tablets, 4 laptops, and 40 e-readers.

250 paper-back books and thousands of e-books

Resources pertaining to health, human rights and education (Khan Academy, Wikipédia, etc.) A pop-up cinema with films and HD cameras.

Board games, video games, puppets and a makeshift theatre

Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, BSF, in collaboration with designer Philippe Starck and the High Commission of Refugees, developed the Ideas Box: a tool providing solutions for learning and development for those affected by catastrophes. Beyond responses of humanitarian needs such as food, water and shelter, the Ideas Box provides communities with resources to help cope with hardships and imagine solutions to their daily challenges. The Ideas Box is an easy to set up, innovative approach for providing services to diverse communities, especially to regions with limited internet access and lack of access to libraries. Today, the Ideas Box in Europe, United States, Australia and Africa reinforces education, employment, entrepreneurship and social cohesion in disadvantaged regions and vulnerable communities. About 70 Ideas Box kits have already been implemented around the world, and it is estimated that 100 Ideas Box will be deployed by the end of 2017.

EASY TO SET UP MOBILE AND A FLEXIBLE, SECURE ADAPTED CLOSE SUPPORT AUTONOMOUS AND CONNECTED SPACE CONTENT BY BSF EXPERTS

Create a space where one can learn, get information and have fun in less than 20 minutes. bsf campus A CAPACITY-BUILDING PLATFORM FOR LIBRARIES

100 lessons organized in 6 subjects, over 10 hours of educational video content

Training and certification

Young Leaders Program of individualized support

The development of libraries and cultural entrepreneurs is key to the success of libraries as agents of development and social transformation. In 2015, BSF addressed this challenge by creating BSF Campus, a free platfrom for libraries in French-speaking libraries to use the latest innovations in teaching methods and technology. BSF Campus offers access to hours of online courses (in the form of videos, media content, articles, exercises, etc.) and allows students to obtain a diploma. BSF Campus is an individualised support system: the program "Young Leaders" having trained 33 cultural entrepreneurs in 2015-2016.

AVAILABLE ONLINE INNOVATIVE NEW CONTENT AND OFFLINE TEACHING METHODS ADDED AND TECHNOLOGY REGULARLY

Developping skills to improve leadership, adovcacy and innovation. the code travellers THE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO DIGITAL TRAINING

A catalog of resources, files, practice exercises and guides Creating and sharing ressources with a community A network of facilitators throughout France

A coding box with laptopss, 4G wifi key, electronic hacking kit, facilitation guides

With The Code Travellers, BSF puts citizen and volunteer engagement at the heart of a large-scale digital training strategy. BSF supports and trains citizen digital facilitators who make up the Code Traveller community. The community carries out diverse workshops that offer new keys to understand computer programming and digital languages, evaluate practices and understand our highly digital environment. The Code Travellers favor the strengthening of individual skills through resources that allow the facilitation of introductory workshops for digital programming, coding, school curricula, training on digital facilitation, and creating a sharing community.

SPECIALIZED TRAINING FOR SUPPORT FOR DIGITAL KEY TOOLS FOR REGIONAL MEETINGS CIVIL SERVICE PERSONNEL, LITERACY PROJECTS ORGANIZING TO EXCHANGE FACILITATORS, WORKSHOPS GOOD PRACTICES NON-PROFITS AND MORE

Allow everyone to become a digital literacy actor. the koom code book travellers THE ULTRA-LIGHT AND AUTONOMOUS DIGITAL LIBRARY

The size of a book

Providing a wifi connection

Providing access to Khan Academy, Wikipedia, TED videos, the Gutenberg library

Can be connected to a TV or video projector

With the KoomBook, BSF has created a new generation of digital, ultralight libraries that function without an internet connection. Thanks to the Ideas Cube software, which is also present in the Ideas Box, the KoomBook creates a wifi hotspot which users can connect to with the help of a smart phone, tablet or laptop to access thousands of learning, cultural or training resources. Set up within a library, school or rural medical center, the KoomBook's text, videos, online courses and multimedia objects can be accessed by up to 12 simultaneous connections on a 100 ft radius. When connected to the Internet, the KoomBook updates automatically and shares all local content in the cloud. New content can also be downloaded through an online catalog.

ACCESSIBLE IN DIGITAL RESOURCES GROUP REGULAR ANY CONTEXT FOR TRAINING AND ACTIVITIES UPDATES INFORMATION-SHARING

Spreading knowledge and information where there is no internet. khan academy THE FREE AND FUN PLATFORM TO LEARN ABOUT EVERYTHING

More than 4,000 videos and thousands of exercises

Quality educational content.

A tutoring mechanism to continously follow children's progress Elementary school to college level learning content

Khan Academy is a platform providing access to free, quality learning resources and tools allowing for a personalized, interactive learning process for students of all ages. BSF translated Khan Academy resources to French in 2013, inclu- ding more than 4,000 math and science video lessons, tutoring tools and thousands of suppporting exercises for students and teachers. More than 2 million users, 40,000 teachers, and 25,000 parents have connected to the French Khan Academy since its release.

INDIVIDUAL SUPPORT FOR SUPPORT FOR ANYONE READY TO USE TOOLS TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IMPLEMENTING DIGITAL FOR ORGANIZING EDUCA- EDUCATION AND TUTORING TIONAL WORKSHOPS PROGRAMS

Favor a collaborative lear- ning process and strengthen student confidence. my connected book bag THE BOOK BAG THAT ALLOWS HOSPITALIZED CHILDREN TO FOLLOW THEIR CLASSES LIVE OR THROUGH VIDEO RECORDINGS. A tablet for the hospitalized child and their teacher

A camera to film the class

A camera on a tripod to film the teacher and the blackboard

A secure server to save classes

In the hospital, a child can directly attend class at a distance through a tablet. They can interact with their class and ask questions. They also receive exercises and documents from the teacher, directly through the tablet. If the student is tired or must follow a medical treatment, the lesson will be automatically saved. In class, Mon Cartable Connecté is set up in just a few minutes. It is made up of two cameras: one filming the teacher and the blackboard ; the other filming the class, permitting the student to see their classmates and interact with them. The saved courses are stocked on a secure server. The tablet linked to the backpack set up in the classroom is the only way to watch the class. This allows the teacher to give additional information on saved lessons, to send students exercises or to communicate with them on the chat application. The saved courses are automatically deleted after a time determined by the teacher.

REDUCE ISOLATION ADAPTING THE INTERACTIVITY OF HOSPITALIZED SCHEDULE IN LINE BETWEEN THE CHILD, CHILDREN WITH THE THE CLASS, AND THE HOSPITALIZED CHILD TEACHER

Support hospitalized students and reconnect them to their class. Developing new perspectives* OUR DAILY DRIVE: PROMOTE CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND TRANSFORM LEARNING TECHNIQUES

24 10 YEARS OF ACTION

Africa Asia & Oceania

Burundi Australia Cameroon Azerbaijan Ivory Coast Georgia Ethiopia India Madagascar Nepal Morocco Niger Americas Democratic Republic of the Colombia Congo Ecuador Rwanda United States Senegal Haiti Tanzania Nicaragua Angola Peru Benin Burkina Faso Comoros Europe Mali France Chad Germany Togo Belgium Tunisia Greece South Africa (pas de trace de Italy ce projet) Djibouti Middle East Guinea Conakry Jordan Mauritania Lebanon Uganda Iraq Central African Republic Turkey

Past Ongoing Upcoming Book donation project

*Polar projection map

25 10 YEARS OF ACTIVITY

26 85 Ideas Box kits implementd around the world 400 000 Ideas Box visits around the world 31 pays where we have worked in 10 years 2 millions users of French Khan Academy 3 000 librarians trained through BSF Campus 10 YEARS 71 Voyageurs du Code clubs OF ACTIVITY 264 767 books sent to those in need Emergency, post-conflict and peacebuilding

When a disaster or conflict strikes, aid is naturally oriented towards food, housing, healthcare, and clothes. Once these vital needs are ensured, it is essential to allow the affected populations to reconnect with the rest of the world, fight boredom and engage with the resilience process, so that they may build their future. Since 2010 and our work in Haiti, we have been intervening in humanitarian aid to advocate for more recognition of the intellectual (educational, cultural, informational) needs of endangered populations. By relying on innovative tools such as the Ideas Box and KoomBook, we, alongside several partners, are creating programs to reinforce formal and informal education, protection, psychosocial support, and community building. Through our programs, we hope to give the most vulnerable populations the means to build solutions in answer to the problems with which they are confronted. We defend an approach based on the final user (human-centered design) and the reinforcement of their capacities. We furthermore believe that culture is a wonderful tool for peace and reconciliation, and a solid base on which to build societies. We see this everywhere, in the refugee camps in which we work across the world: libraries create social connections and appease tension inside refugee camps and between refugees and host populations. In this same spirit, and at its request, we are collaborating with the National Library of Colombia on a massive intervention plan regarding the historic peace Strategic treaty signed in the country. objectives 1. Reinforce the protection, education, and psychosocial support of the most vulnerable populations in situations of humanitarian emergency and post- conflict.

2. Transform the standards of humanitarian aid to ensure a better consideration of the intellectual dimension of endangered populations.

28 10 YEARS OF ACTION

« So that reading, writing and access to information become a priority of emergency humanita- rian aid; so that support agencies as well as States take better into account this essential element of human needs. To rebuild, you must also be able to read and speak. » Excerpt from the "The Urgency of Reading" call to action.

Two Ideas Box kits arrive in the camps for Burundian refugees in Mahama, Rwanda - March 2017 © BSF

29 EMERGENCY, POST-CONFLICT AND PEACEBUILDING

| African Great Lakes FOR THEM

Damas, a young 29-year old Burundian, was a refugee in Tanzania until he was relocated The Rwandan genocide in 1994, the Burundian Civil War to Mabanda, in Burundi. He has been helping from 1993 to 2003, the Congo War from 1998 to 2002, the deploy the Ideas Box in the community since Kivu conflict from 2004 to 2009: for the past two decades October 2014. at least, the African Great Lakes area has been disturbed Before the arrival of the Ideas Box, I was always by recurrent and murderous conflicts that massively out, drinking beer…I wasn’t doing anything displace and hinder local populations. Burundi, a small else, and I didn’t have a good relationship with and very dense landlocked country, hosts over 58,000 my family. But now, when I come back from the refugees, mainly from the neighboring region of South- Ideas Box, I tell them what it is and what we do Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. Burundi is also home there. Now, my parents are very proud of me.” to 140,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs). Damas was highly invested in the project from It is in this context that BSF began intervening, starting in its beginning, participates in the activities February 2014, with the deployment of the first two Ideas offered as part of the Ideas Box, and is being Box in the Congolese refugee camps Kavumu and Musasa. trained as a facilitator for the tool. In July 2014, a third media center was installed in the Bwagiriza camp. A fourth was deployed in October 2014 “I learned how to use a computer, before, in a youth center of Mabanda, a commune that welcomes I had never touched one. The Ideas Box several Burundian returnees from Tanzania. After a pilot space is like my second home: I go there to phase, the management of these four projects is now taken read, learn several countries’ history, which in charge by BSF’s partners, who completely took over the teaches me moral lessons that help me in tool and use it daily. The International Rescue Committee life and allow me to know what’s going on in facilitates the Ideas Box used in refugee camps, and local the world and open myself to others.” authorities, supported by the United Nations’ Program for Development, oversee the Mabanda Ideas Box. When the BSF project was transferred to the municipal authorities of Mabanda, they opened In three years, the media center kits have received over recruitment for an Ideas Box facilitator and for 85,000 visits and 10,000 users. They saw the birth of a center to host him. Damas became the Ideas several drawings, slam poems, a zombie movie, and several Box and center full time facilitator! Despite the users’ passion for cultural animation. The four media center conflict currently threatening Burundi, Damas kits are now points of reference in the communities that chose to stay, notably to continue running the they have contributed to revitalize and unite. They improve Ideas Box program. individual’ psychosocial well-being. Their positive impact on academic performance has also been proven: the math grades of the children using tutorials on Khan Academy through the Ideas Box were on average 23% higher than those of children not using the Ideas Box.

30 10 YEARS OF ACTION

The sociopolitical issues that have shook Burundi since No matter what you encounter April 2015 have strongly degraded the country’s security situation. Combined with a drought and massive flooding, Look carefully, there’s an it has forced almost 140,000 Burundians to flee towards neighboring countries, particularly Tanzania, and has opening created another 140,000 IDPs inside the country. This Destiny has nothing to do with it strong development of problems and needs in Burundi and throughout the area has led BSF to intensify and extend its you are the artist of your fate actions in the Great Lakes area. After failure take yourself

At the beginning of 2017, 11 KoomBook kits were deployed in hand in the provinces near the Tanzanian border that welcome the most Burundian IDPs and returnees from Tanzania. And redraw your future!! The KoomBooks contain valuable documental resources Poem by Dem’s, a Congolese refugee, slam artist, and user of the Kavumu Ideas Box in Burundi in 2015. on child protection, sexual and reproductive health, and women’s emancipation. They allow community leaders and the International Rescue Committee personnel to better inform populations and prevent tensions within communities. In the next few months, two Ideas Boxes will be deployed in Rumonge and Isare in youth centers to facilitate the reinsertion of displaced and repatriated populations in Tanzania.

Two Ideas Box have also been deployed in Rwanda, in the Mahama camp, which hosts over 50,000 Burundian refugees. Ran by Handicap International, the Ideas Box are reinforcing services for persons with special needs (isolated minors, senior citizens, handicapped persons) and psychosocial needs. We will continue deploying new Ideas Box kits for the use of refugees and displaced persons throughout the second semester of 2017, in Rwanda but also in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Uganda.

“The best victory was that the Ideas Box allowed us to gather the WITH population, whatever an individual’s status or past: refugees, former THEM refugees newly come back, handicapped persons. People meet there and find occupations, which allows them to forget the problems that might distinguish them. The Ideas Box really helped us fight the issues tied to juvenile delinquency: the youth who come to use it relearn how to live in society while having fun.” Onesphore Wakana, sociocultural advisor of the Mabanda municipality, Burundi

31 EMERGENCY, POST-CONFLICT AND PEACEBUILDING

was led by professional French, Syrian, and Jordanian | Middle East rappers for the benefit of about 40 children and teenagers. In the beginning of 2017, an Ideas Box was also deployed in partnership with the NRC and with startup Youth Without Borders in Irbid, North Jordan, to help youth work on professional development and training. The Syrian conflit, ongoing for the last six years, is the worst refugee and IDP crisis since the end of the Second Four new Ideas Boxes should be set up in Jordan by the end World War. 5 million Syrians are now refugees in the Middle of 2017. For this reason, the country will remain a key point East. Almost half are younger than 18. For these children, of intervention for BSF in the following months and years. to be born or to become a refugee means having restricted access to a quality education and limited opportunities to contribute to the development of their society. And yet, it is the education, integration, and independence building “The goal is to build a dream. of these children and teens that will guarantee the region a more serene future. These are also crucial elements for When you see something in adults who saw their lives ruined by the war and must find front of you, don’t hurry. Because ways to rebuild themselves. if you hurry to do something, it won’t be yours. You must be JORDAN

One third of the roughly 660,000 Syrian refugees patient, because you won’t reach registered in Jordan are school-aged children. Although your goal without patience. And 64% go to school, tens of thousands are marginalized, especially teenagers. because I’ve been patient, I’ve reached part of my goal, and I Since April 2015, BSF has been deploying the Ideas Box in Jordan. The first was set up in the Syrian refugee camp hope to accomplish what I set Azraq, where it is part of the psychosocial activities offered by the NGO CARE. The Ideas Box is very much used, and out to do.” has become the production HQ of the camp magazine, Excerpt from the lyrics to a rap text by Hassan Gilan, 16 years which was created by a group of teenage girls. Since old, Iraqi refugee in Jordan, written in February 2017 within the October 2016, the Zaatari camp, which has become a real Ideas Box. tent city of over 80,000 people, also welcomes an Ideas Box in the Norwegian Refugee Council’s learning center (NRC). It is available for the teachers of nearby classrooms, and allows them to complement their classes by relying LEBANON on more entertaining resources, thereby maintaining the Nearly half of the 500,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon children’s attention. that are of age to be in school are not. This is particularly noticeable for children aged 12 to 18, and exposes them to The Ideas Box is also present in urban zones, where a several risks: child labor, underage marriage… majority of Syrian refugees gather and must coexist with their host communities, whether Jordanian or other Since the summer of 2016, BSF has contributed, alongside refugee populations (Iraqi, Somali, Palestinian). In the other NGOs such as INTERSOS and the UNHCR, to the underserved neighborhood of Hashmi a-Shamali in Amman, mediation of a community center in El Marj, in the valley the Ideas Box set up in CARE’s community center benefited of Beqaa, the area that welcomes the largest number of 3,156 people in the time between June and September Syrian refugees. The Ideas Box deployed in the center was 2016. For instance, women gathered around the video at first used freely, to determine the use, expectations, and booth to watch TED talks about personal development and desires of the center’s visitors. After this evaluation phase, entrepreneurship. In January 2017, BSF used the Ideas Box four activities were retained by the participants: creating to facilitate the organization of a hip hop workshop, which stories through writing and drawing, teaching oneself

32 10 YEARS OF ACTION

hairstyling, sewing, and makeup through online videos, The Bardarash camp, in Iraqi Kurdistan, hosts over 10,000 photography, and digital literacy workshops on using tools displaced persons, mostly from the Shabak minority which such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint. fled Mosul and, since the summer 2015 advance of the Islamic State, from the Nineveh plains. BSF deployed an Making the users increasingly responsible and independent Ideas Box there in August 2016 to support the psychosocial is at the heart of this project, and invites them to develop activities of a variety of humanitarian actors, led by First themselves on the optimal use of the Ideas Box and to use International Emergency Over 400 users were registered its resources beyond the activities organized by facilitators. within a month of its inauguration. The Ideas Box offers Over 1,000 people benefitted from it in 2016. documentary and material resources focused on non- formal education, individual or group expression, learning In 2017, the activities will be extended to informal camps Arabic, photography, digital literacy, and even activities on in the context of the INTERSOS awareness raising and raising awareness about hygiene. protection program. They will reinforce the appropriation of the Ideas Box by the center’s visitors, who will be implicated In partnership with Terre des Hommes, the Goethe Institut in these external activities. Furthermore, a second Ideas has also been using an Ideas Box in Iraqi Kurdistan since Box will be deployed in Lebanon at some point this year. the end of 2016, in the displaced persons camp of Debaga.

Several Ideas Boxes will be deployed in Iraq in 2017 to IRAQ answer the needs of the persons displaced by the armed conflict; for instance, in the Mosul area, BSF will work in Since 2014, the violence in Syria has spread to the direct partnership with Oxfam. Other Ideas Boxes are neighboring country of Iraq, displacing over 3 million Iraqis meant for Turkey, a country that is directly impacted by the throughout the country. Becoming a refugee is a traumatic Syrian and Iraqi crises and that hosts the largest number of event that often interferes with a children's education. refugees in the world.

Iraqi refugee children in the Bardarash camp in Irqai Kurdistan - July 2016

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| Europe

Over 1.5 million persons have sought refuge in Europe since 2014, fleeing murderous conflicts in Syria and Iraq and violence and instability in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Eritrea, and elsewhere. Migrants are risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean and reach the shores of Greece and Italy. In these host countries, their status is often uncertain, and they are unequally welcomed by different European countries.

GREECE

In 2016, 173,000 migrants arrived in Europe through Greece, 35,000 of which are stuck in Greece due to the European Union-Turkey accord, the closing of the Balkans route, and the slowness of the relocation process. This population struggles with inhuman living conditions in overcrowded camps, formal and informal, which are unadapted for semi- permanent hosting.

Since March 2016, three Ideas Box kits have been installed The Ideas Box in the Eleonas refugee camp in Athens, Greece- April 2016©BSF in refugee camps in Eleonas, Moria, and Malakasa. Almost 9,000 total visits have been registered. While several human aid organizations have left the Moria camp to protest the living conditions, which are not in accordance WITH THEM with human rights, BSF, alongside Save the Children, chose to stay to provide the camp’s isolated minors with a space that they could use and tools to express their frustration With BSF, we were able to rethink informal and suffering. Deployed in 2016 in partnership with Secours education, and what we want to accomplish.We Islamique de France, the Malakasa Ideas Box quickly became had very rich discussions regarding education: the camp children’s “favorite place,” their only access point how to teach, how to raise the children’s to education. A dynamic team of facilitators uses it to offer interest? Most times, facilitators organize the informal educational activities, moments of exchange with Ideas Box space in Malakasa in a way that was the Greek community, and a space for resting, with a well more centered on the teacher, like in school. installed borrowing policy for children and adults. Thanks to the recommendations of Romain [manage for the BSF Ideas Box], we realized In 2017, in partner with Terre des Hommes, an Ideas Box we could reorganize the space, leaving the and 5 KoomBooks were set up in Ioannina, where many children the freedom to redefine it, every day refugees are gathered. Three new Ideas Box had to be if they want to. deployed throughout the year, however one will only be operated by a team from BSF. Marina-Isaia Mavridou, Greece project manager, Secours Islamique France

34 10 YEARS OF ACTION

“To not know something is like Through photography, the refugees could show how they perceive the city. This was also a way to show public opinion being blind. If I am informed, I that integration is a social and personal process, removed from dogmatic positions. can see again.” Hasan, 18 years old, is an Afghan refugee of the Malakasa In 2017, BSF is continuing its collaboration with Diakonie; we camp, who uses the Ideas Box to read books, watch documen- taries, and take English classes. The Ideas Box animation team hope to learn from the multiple creative uses that are made helps him manage his problems: recurring boredom, access to of the Ideas Box in this context. higher education, possibility of emigrating to Canada.

ITALY

Italy is now Europe’s first point of entry for migrants: over 180,000 people reached its coast in 2016.

Three Ideas Box projects are currently being developed in the country, and will be inaugurated in 2017, particularly in Sicily, in partnership with the city of Palermo and the Italian

Ministry of Culture. Furthermore, a digital legal library is The Ideas Box in the Eleonas refugee camp in Athens, Greece - April 2016 ©BSF under construction, so that new arrivals can access legal information as soon as possible. This library will be available via both KoomBooks and the Ideas Box.

GERMANY

With over 1.2 million refugees welcomed in 2015 and 2016, Germany is an exceptional host country within the European Union. The refugees’ reception and integration has been taken in charge by organizations supported by German authorities, and has been going on in quasi- optimal conditions.

BSF has been working in Dusseldorf since July 2016 alongside the charitable organization Diakonie. An Ideas Box was first deployed in an information center for asylum seekers, then, in November, moved to one of the last refugee camps in Dusseldorf, which hosts around 250 Syrians refugees.

The Ideas Box is a space for valuable encounters between the refugee community and the city’s inhabitants. It was used to organize a discussion of high schoolers and refugees around stereotypes and prejudice, which culminated in the creation of a giant graffiti. The Ideas Box cameras and photo editing software were used as part of the photo exhibit project “Arriving and living in Dusseldorf.”

35 EMERGENCY, POST-CONFLICT AND PEACEBUILDING

| Ethiopia FOR THEM

For over twenty years, civil wars and repeated droughts With the Ideas Box, our children have stories have led hundreds of thousands of Somalis to flee to to tell when they come home. They tell us what Ethiopia. In the border area of Dollo Ado, over 250,000 they learned during the day, about Somalia people live in camps, where many were born and raised. and the world…We see a change in their spirit, Only 34% of school-aged children actually attend school. in what they read and what they tell us. Instead

of hanging around, playing soccer, now they Since November 2015, two Ideas Box have been opened to come here. the inhabitants of the Bokolmayo and Melkadida camps, born of a partnership between BSF, Save the Children Ibrahim, Somali refugee, parent of children who International, and the HCR. In Melkadida, the Ideas Box use the Ideas Box, Bokolmayo camp, Ethiopia. provides a space, equipment and learning resources for a 6 to 12 month-long digital literacy course, which benefits 70 students every year. In Bokomayo, the Ideas Box server provides access to online contents offline since Internet is inaccessible in the camp. The educational content loaded on the server can be downloaded by the camp’s inhabitants onto their cellular phones as soon as they are in the proximity of the Ideas Box. Readers, who are full of books in Somali and about Somalia, are widely diffused in both Bokolmayo and Melkadida. While many children have never been in their origin country, such information teach them about their roots and are a precious intergenerational link.

Refugee Somalian women discover the Ideas Box in one of the Dollo Ado refugee camps in Ethiopia - December 2016 @BSF

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| Colombia

Since the 1960s, Colombia has been faced with an armed conflict, which mainly opposes the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). At the end of 2016, after four years of negotiations, a peace treaty was finally signed by the two sides. To enact it and fight the inequalities that fed the conflict, the country must quickly implement large-scale human and economic resources, new infrastructures, and institutions. This is especially the case with libraries. BSF has been working with the Ministry of Culture and National Library of Colombia since the summer of 2016 on an ambitious and well-structured contribution of libraries to the peacebuilding process. The Colombian government has gambled on culture as a central element for national reconciliation. After several months of construction, training, and selecting contents, twenty Ideas Box, mobile libraries in favor of peace, are now deployed in the demobilization and transition Presentation of the Ideas Box to President Francois Hollande, by President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia. ©Efraim Herrera-SIG-SIG zones, to be used by communities affected by the conflict, former FARC combatants, and indigenous populations. A BSF team based in Colombia has been created to support the project and the librarians in charge of the day-to-day facilitation of the Ideas Box. Their arrival marks a return of the State in communities where it has been largely absent these past decades. The collaborative spaces they create are particularly important for encouraging exchanges, rebuilding trust in between communities and the State, and therefore, supporting in the peacebuilding process. This national project, which brings hope to many, has been given a prominent place by the Colombian government. For this reason, the Ideas Box was presented by Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos to French President Francois Hollande during his January 2017 visit to Colombia.

Implementation of one of the 20 Ideas Box kits in Colombia - February 2017 ©BSF

WITH THEM The National Library of Colombia and Ministry of Culture were looking to extend public libraries’ services into “hard to access” zones, of which there are many in Colombia. Many of these were also affected by the conflict, especially rural areas. So, we were interested in the Ideas Box, which offers all that a classic library does: it is a complete public library. As we conceptualized it, it also integrates innovative services such as a cinematographic database, a platform for sharing pictures, and a forum for communities to discuss, using the Ideas Box. Diego Merizalde, Coordinator for the Public Libraries Reinforcement Project in Colombia

37 Education and sharing culture

We always work in close tie with local partners (non-profits, libraries, local authorities, etc.) to implement programs than reinforce educative and cultural actions. As with the KoomBook, Ideas Box, or Code Travelers program, we create innovative methods and tools that can easily be transferred to local actors In that way, we contribute to reinventing libraries, both in the form they take and their missions and in the way they are perceived and used by populations.

Our collaboration with libraries in France, Australia, and the United States demonstrates the tremendous effect and potential of tools like the Ideas Box to transform communities, and to reinvent the library itself. Since the need to reimagine the library as a lever of development extends beyond the borders of industrialized countries, we are actively expanding our library programs within the Global South.

L'Ideas Box à la Friche Belle de Mai à Marseille, avec la bibliothèque et ACELEM - Mars 2017 © Acelem

Strategic Objectives 1. We seek to reduce inequalities of access to information, education, and cultural resources globally.

2. We seek to reinvent the library as a key space and that can reduce inequality and strengthen community, democracy, and citizenship.

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| France and Belgium DIGITAL LITERACY While technology occupies a central place in the daily lives of many Europeans, digital literacy and knowledge about coding are essential if we wish citizens to become more than In France, the rise of inequalities is a looming threat to just mere digital consumers. In the age of smartphones and the country’s cohesion. The poorest continue to grow connectivity, the digital divide is no longer just a question poorer, and entire segments of the population are excluded of having access to hardware, but the capacity to use them from the workforce, and cannot access decent housing, properly. It is only through their mastery that we will be healthcare, or educational and professional opportunities. able to reduce social inequality and vulnerability. With even higher unemployment rates than in France, the Belgian region of Wallony, faces a similar situation as The challenge of digital literacy is first and foremost well as strong territorial disparities when compared with political and societal. Internet has become not only a the capital, Brussels and the Flanders region. The school space for disseminating information, but also a place system, whether French or Belgian, struggles to reduce of communication and of public debate. Digital literacy these social and economic inequalities: it often reproduces is now a marker of understanding and participation in or even aggravates them. And yet academic records remain civic life, a fundamental prerequisite to support human one of the best protections against unemployment and rights. Being able to search for quality information is poverty. increasingly essential to find one's place on the labor market. Understanding the mechanisms underlying digital technologies allows for protecting onself against their The stakes are extremely high for educative and socio- dangers: violation of privacy, loss of personal data, hacking. cultural actors: allow for a social and economic progression, Finally, while the digital economy needs renewal of ideas, fight extremisms of all kinds, favor the integration of the lack of appropriation of technologies and coding ​​ marginalized populations, promote citizenship. With over by young people, especially those from less privileged 16 000 spaces for public reading, France has an exceptionally backgrounds, stifles talent and contributes to the drying up dense network of libraries and access points for books. of innovation. But, with a registration rate averaging 17%, libraries’ social potential is far from exploiting its full potential.. Distance, For several years now, BSF has been promoting the opening hours and prejudices tied to libraries limit their appropriation of digital literacy initiatives by actors of impact. formal and non-formal education, including libraries. These can increase their reach and rethink their role acting as a halfway place between school and society. Reluctance from New uses and strategies must therefore be thought out some teachers and librarians, mainly out of fear that digital to reach out to those who are unfamiliar with libraries or tools a way to replace them, need to to be allayed: their think they are not for them. We must create synergies facilitation and support are more than ever necessary so with local authorities. With the Ideas Box, Code Travelers, that everyone can master these new technologies. Khan Academy, and BSF Campus, BSF supports change within Belgian and French libraries and offers innovative educational tools which librarians, teachers, and socio- cultural facilitators may appropriate and use to teach their respective audiences.

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• French Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a free online learning platform, particularly well designed; it is a tool used to renew the ways in which we learn, which is essential in ensuring equality of opportunity in schools, whether in France, Belgium, or elsewhere. Khan Academy’s interactive dimension makes it attractive to students and allows them to reconnect with subject matters that are all too often abandoned. It also saves time for teachers, who can spend more time on an individualized monitoring of their students.

Since 2013, Khan Academy has been adapted in French by BSF. Over 4,000 science and math tutorial videos have been translated by BSF’s teams, as well as tutoring tools and tens of thousands of exercises which support both students and teachers. Over two million users have logged on to the French platform since its launch, including 40,000 teachers and educators and 25,000 parents.

Beyond offering relevant learning content through a functional and intuitive tool, BSF supports education professionals who wish to integrate the Khan Academy platform into their classes. To do so, BSF develops and Learning made easy with the interactive videos and exercises of the Khan Academy © BSF moderates the community website for French Khan Academy, where over 1,500 teachers, tutors and parents the end of 2017. have signed up and can exchange best practices. BSF completes this virtual presence with an on the ground approach, by offering in-person or remote trainings and support of networks, teachers, tutors, and parents to For BSF, the French adaptation of Khan Academy is a first use digital educational solutions such as Khan Academy. step in the creation of original pedagogic content. This Training workshops began in the middle of the last expertise is now put to contribution by programs such as trimester of 2016, in Belgium, and will be prolonged until the Code Travellers, BSF Campus, and BSF Education.

On the ground RECONNECT MIDDLE SCHOOLERS AND MATHEMATICS

Aziz is a middle school math teacher in an underserved neighborhood of Brussels. Many of his students drop out. To re- motivate them and give them a taste for mathematics, he suggested they use Khan Academy. “I let them decide what they want to work on, even if it’s not something we did in class.” Each week, Aziz presents a report to his students to valorize their work and encourage them to continue. Results are already very encouraging: over 70% of them have logged onto the platform, and 50% return to it regularly. Some students, who were no longer working in class, have even started doing extra exercises outside of school!

40 10 YEARS OF ACTION

Digital literacy volunteers conducting a workshop in France © BSF

• Code Travelers Travelers dynamic: Code Week, “Tangible” hackathon, Open Door Day in Thales, Hour of Code, Summer University with Created by BSF and launched in Montreuil in 2014, Code the Teaching League…The year 2017 will be particularly Travelers is a popular education program which raises rich in events, with the simultaneous organization of a awareness of the importance of digital culture and literacy Game Jam in several cities, a Coding Suitcase hackathon, and trains the general public to learn coding. It relies on and participations in the Numok Festival and Code Week. a community of benevolent facilitators who organize ad hoc initiation workshops and long-term training cycles in In Belgium, about 10 training workshops were organized relay structures: libraries, associative structures, schools, in 2016, two of them meant for education and library social centers, local missions…Since the program’s launch professionals: public literacy network by the Wallonia- in Montreuil, over 520 workshops have gathered about Brussels Federation and ITCE Technofutur, organisms 5,000 participants and 71 Code Travelers clubs were born, in charge of training from the Public Digital Spaces of roughly 50 in France and 15 in Belgium. The Code Travelers Wallonia. Designed in collaboration with the Professional participate in the program’s development through a web Association of Librarians and Archivists (APBD) and the platform animated by BSF. They rely on tools such as Institute of Social Higher Education for Information and Codeacademy, a learning platform that is entirely free and Documentation (IESSID), these two sessions raised the open to all and was adapted in French by BSF, or Code- enthusiasm of professionals who welcomed the training of Decode applications. “field player speaking to the field.”

While an increasing number of clubs are gaining their Initially targeting support spaces such as libraries, the independence, BSF still plays an important role in the Code Travelers offer has been broadening since June 2015, animation and development of the Code Travelers extending to the school and extracurricular sectors. With community. In that way, in 2016, 50 people were directly Code-Decode, formerly named the Ecole du Code, Code trained by BSF in Montreuil, and another hundred will be Travelers can rely on tools specially designed to teach trained in 2017 throughout France. BSF is involved in several children as young as 7 how to appropriate programming larger audience and network events to feed the Code skills, digital literacy, and code culture. Three applications

41 EDUCATION AND SHARING CULTURE

him an agency that is often lost in medical contexts. FOR THEM We are working to develop this project on a national scale: le Collectif and the Ministry of Education signed a convention You can create something without being very in 2016 to test this project in ties with the academies. My manual. I like computers where you can be Connected Schoolbag allowed BSF to acquire an expertise creative without using your hands. With Code in medical environments and to better understand the Traveler workshops, there’s lots of people and educational and psychosocial elements of working with from a socialization point of view, it’s great. hospitalized children. You feel older and more responsible because of all the adults.

Mélyssa, 11 years old, Code Traveler

are currently available: DataDecode for data processing, GleamCode for pixel art and GameCode for creating video games. The Code-Decode tools and pedagogic resources The "Connected book bag" were conceived by Tralalere in partnership with Toxicode, the Ecole nationale superieure de creation industrielle, a panel of students from the Academy of Créteil, the feedback from Code Travelers, and contributions from the Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique de Bordeaux Sud-Ouest. BSF enriches pedagogic resources, mobilizes the Code Travelers community, and creates trainings suitable for each player in the field of education The goal for the next few years is for the education community to appropriate and use these tools. BSF, through the Code Travelers, wishes to continue to promote coding as a fun method of civic engagement that is open to all.

• My Connected Book bag

In France, close to 2 million children are hospitalized every year. However long, this hospitalization separates them from their school, classroom, and friends. Technology can “It is important for her to really reconnect the child to school while in the hospital or healing at home. This is the goal of My Connected Schoolbag, a stay in contact and be part project led by Le Collectif whose technical and pedagogical of the classroom. To be there aspects BSF has been supporting since 2015. even though it’s not physical. After a pilot phase, three Connected Schoolbags were deployed amid hospitalized children in 2016. These first That human aspect is really an deployments were a success. The children can interact and advantage, even if it is from a immerse themselves in their normal social environment, and their friends are glad to re-establish a relationship, as distance.” is the teacher. The child is given the ability to manipulate Carine Vignelles, mother of Typhaine, a 6th grade user of My the cameras which make up a Connected Schoolbag, giving Connected Schoolbag

42 10 YEARS OF ACTION

CITIZENSHIP AND SECULARISM module “The library and the citizen,” made up of 10 videos and which completes the BSF Campus online learning Libraries are a decisive space for the exercise of democracy platform. It offers several keys to concretely making the and for human and societal development, which means library a place for expressing and defending the values of they have an important role to play in France in learning the Republic. citizenship. This mission is particularly essential in a troubled period, which is marked by murderous attacks and the rise of all sorts of extremisms. And yet, there is a cruel INTEGRATING UNDERSERVED POPULATIONS lack of pedagogic resources for discussing questions of laicity and freedom of expression and conscience. Asylum seekers, migrants, homeless, foreigners of French, all are ignored by France’s cultural policies. Yet their Since the summer of 2015, BSF has been working with reintegration into society depends on learning languages, jurists and historians to develop a fun but complete mastering social codes. and having access to development answer to the questions everyone has been asking: Why opportunities. These are all missions of libraries which, is it forbidden to wear the burqa in France? How could although open to all, struggle to reach these audiences. we modernize the French calendar? Why was DIeudonné Since 2015, BSF has deployed the Ideas Box in welcome condemned and not Charlie Hebdo? How about Brigitte spaces for these marginalized populations, a first step to Bardot? Does the State finance religious schools? All these allowing them to re-appropriate libraries and make them a questions will find an answer in short videos available in tool for insertion. free access on the BSF Education YouTube channel. Once the videos are produced, partnerships will be implemented In 2015, an initial pilot program saw the installation of an for their diffusion through informal education networks. A Ideas Box in Taverny (Val d’Oise), in one of the French Red second phase of the project plans to support these youth, Cross welcome centers for unaccompanied foreign minors. assisted by teachers and educators, in writing scripts on The local media center and the Child and Parent department these issues of citizenship, which will then be made into of Argenteuil were implicated in this project, giving it the videos. local base fundamental to its success. In 2016 and 2017, several emergency shelters in the Paris area, mainly for Simultaneously, BSF has been collaborating with the asylum seekers, welcomed an Ideas Box: the former Jean Médiathèque Départementale du Nord (Departmental Quarré high school (19th arrondissement) with Emmaüs Media Center of the North) since 2016 to develop a training Solidarité, the National Institute of industrial property (8th around citizenship for library professionals and volunteers. arrondissement) now reconverted into the emergency In May 2017, several workshops on design thinking animated family shelter “Saint Petersburg,” and in Ivry, with the by BSF and librarians, and an intense collective effort led organization Aurore. More short-term implementations over several months, resulted in the creation of the training were led at Halte Femmes (12th arrondissement), an Aurore

WITH UN LIVRE POUR DEUX MAINS (ONE BOOK FOR TWO HANDS), WE LIVEN THE INTERCULTURAL DEBATE AND FIGHT NATIONALISM AND EXTREMISM From 2008 to 2014, BSF animated the Un livre deux mains program, which reassembled middle and high schoolers from France, Mali and Haiti around writing slam texts. Retrospectives Supported by slammer facilitators, the teenagers wrote their poems at the heart of their 2009-2014 school buildings, and then sent them to their global penpals. Four books, written from several hundred hands, have been published: a collaborative work to fight prejudices and raise public awareness. The 2013-2014 edition focused on the conflict in the North of Mali, highlighting the importance of self-expression and sharing in the context of a crisis as a crucial step in building a pacific country. Artists Oxmo Pucino and Rounda, from the collective 129H, participated in this edition by training facilitator slammers in Bamako.

43 EDUCATION AND SHARING CULTURE

day center for marginalized women, at the Louvel-Tessier philanthropic activities to Dunkirk citizens, BSF deployed center (10th arrondissement) which welcomes asylum an Ideas Box that hosts several educational and cultural seekers and homeless persons, and the Rosa Luxemburg activities both in and out of the camp, which facilitates such center (13th arrondissement), which hosts isolated men activities as learning English and engaging in intercultural and women. By using the Ideas Box, our operating partners exchange around traditional festivities such as Nowruz, the are relying on culture as a major instrument for insertion. equivalent of the New Year. Thanks to the presence of a BSF employee directly on the ground, the Ideas Box welcomes Since June 2016, BSF has been involved with Grande- 30 to 50 people per activity session in the camp. After the Synthe, the first camp in France built based on international fire which ravaged Grande-Synthe and led the State to aid norms. Up to April 2017, over 1,500 people, mainly Kurds close it in mid-April 2017, the project had to be redefined. from Iraq and Iran, resided there. In partnership with the French Red Cross and Médecins du Monde for psychosocial “Tournons la page!” (Let’s turn the page) was launched in activities and the Abbé Pierre foundation, to promote 2012 to create library spaces in homeless shelters of the

Destitute women using the Ideas Box during a temporary deployment in Paris - August 2016 © BSF

MAP-MIE : PARTICIPATORY MAPPING IN THE SERVICE OF ISOLATED FOREIGN MINORS In 2014, BSF trained 150 youth in participatory mapping and supported them in creating a collaborative map, which covers over 200 locations in the Paris area. Retrospectives This map is an innovative and efficient tool which allows the youth who explored 2014 the locations to better appropriate them and new arrivals to better understand the territory. In Grande-Synthe (refugee camp in northern France), BSF also worked with the NGO Mapfugees and camp residents to map the location.

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Paris area. BSF volunteers work with books, workforce LOW-INCOME NEIGHBORHOODS AND INNER entry workshops, storytelling and reading aloud, digital CITIES literacy courses, and French passes. In France, poverty and inequality are concentrated in Creating library spaces directly in the most vulnerable large cities and their peripheries. Despite their territorial peoples’ living spaces is now at the heart of BSF’s mission. implementation, including in these zones, libraries struggle Since 2017, 25 libraries have been created in 25 shelters to attract audiences which know them little or not at all. centers directed by a local French nonprofit (SAMU Social). Others will soon be created, complemented by the In the summer of 2015, an Ideas Box was set up for a period implementation of KoomBooks. of 2 months in Sarcelles, a northern suburb of Paris. Over 1,000 youth took part in artistic, cultural, educational, coding, and journalism activities, in partnership with the “We participated in creating a Anna Langfus intercommunal library. This successful pilot led the Sarcelles town hall to permanently acquire an Ideas library for the center. I believe that Box in the summer of 2016. Thanks to its flexibility, the is very enriching for residents. This Ideas Box can be transported to a variety of locations, both indoors and out: schools and schoolyards, parents’ houses, will allow them to visit libraries sport stadiums and public parks. better, to read or, in some cases, to learn French.” Frédéric, Louvel-Tessier Center resident.

Reading aloud activity in the Ideas Box in the north of Paris - August 2016 © BSF

FROM REGARD SUR LE MONDE TO TOURNONS LA PAGE: LIBRARIES FOR HIGHLY MARGINALIZED POPULATIONS From 2009, through the program “Regard sur le monde” (Outlook on the world), BSF supports the creation of multilingual libraries in three welcome centers for Retrospectives asylum seekers in the Paris region. Residents of all nationalities have worked 2009-2014 together to create libraries with works in Tamil, Russian, Arabic, Farsi, and French.

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Calais is the first French city to have acquired an Ideas Box RURAL AREAS in 2015; since then, it has continued the adventure. The municipal was and remains the Ideas Box’s main facilitator. While France has a remarkable network of libraries, 55% of Since mid-2916, it is supported by an expert from BSF in French municipalities do not have one. This is particularly order to create synergies of local actors around the tool. the case in rural areas. The Ideas Box, as a mobile and flexible system, fills in this gap and creates a new dynamic In Stains (Seinte-Saint-Denis), the Ideas Box was regularly of cultural mediation in areas where there are few cultural deployed in partnership with the media center network resources. Plaine Commune throughout the first semester of 2016 in an enclaved neighborhood, near housing projects and Since the beginning of 2017, an Ideas Box has been a school, in order to support local cultural actions and deployed in the Ille-et-Vilaine department (Brittany region) anticipate the work of the new media center, which will in order to develop projects in rural territories around open in 2017. public literacy and digital education. Halfway between libraries and fab labs, the Ideas Box has a GPS, soldering iron, badge machine, silhouette maker, scanner printer, and a heat press.

Other projects meant for rural areas will be implemented in 2017, particularly in and around the Paris region.

The Ideas Box at the "Friche de Marseille" - March 2017 © BSF

Since March 2017, the city of Marseille and the Cultural Association of Reading and Writing Spaces in the Mediterranean (ACELEM) have been using two Ideas Box in order to approach audiences who have limited opportunities to read. Further projects are set to take place in 2017 in Bordeaux, Amiens, and Montpellier. WITH THEM

It [the Ideas Box] changes everything, because people see us differently. They see us in a different position, they see everything that a media center can offer. The space is a space they already know, because they already visit it to play sports or do other activities. They discover it, and us, in a new way. And they think “I can also take part in a media center.

Bénédicte Frocaut, Director of the public library network of the French city of Calais.

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ADVOCATE FOR LIBRARIES & THEIR OPENING HOURS While, on paper, there have been undeniable advances, their impact on the ground is limited. The financial resources allocated to libraries – stable or decreasing – rarely make Since 2014, with its “Open libraries more” campaign, for an optimal creation of more generous operating hours. BSF has led a strong advocacy effort for French libraries Yet all public literacy spaces, particularly on Sundays, to adapt themselves to their audiences’ needs. Citizen- receive a large audience. initiated petitions, direct calls to elected officials and political candidates, mobilizing medias, bringing in strong These all too rare successes drive BSF to pursue its partners: BSF gives a voice to library users and pushes advocacy work and amplify it through strong alliances. This politicians to get involved. was the case in 2017, in partnership with the Association of Librarians of France (ABF). Together, the two organizations Guided by its belief that libraries must evolve to better reached out to presidential candidates to discuss the account for the changes in their users’ lifestyles, BSF essential roles of libraries in public policy by asking them launched a national petition to extend the opening hours four major questions on the themes of democracy and of municipal and university libraries into the evening, the citizenship, territorial inequalities, digital access and weekend, and during school vacations. In three months, opening hours. The June 2017 legislative elections are this petition garnered over 12,000 signatures and led also an opportunity to unite citizens and candidates French political readers to take several decisions: open 10 around the themes of loosening access to and opening lending libraries in Paris on Sundays, a government sub- hours of libraries, supporting the construction of new amendment requesting that municipal councils that wish establishments, and maintaining or increasing budgets to discuss small businesses being open on Sunday include dedicated to libraries. discussions of libraries, promise of financial support to libraries that commit to longer opening hours, “Open Library” plan for university libraries.

EXCERPT FROM THE CAMPAIGN "OPEN LIBRARIES MORE" - JANUARY 2014 One does not learn and create at fixed hours, from 9:30 to 6 pm, Monday to Saturday! Libraries must be open at the times when individuals and families are most available. Their current opening hours in France, which mimic those of offices, unjustly penalize those who should be their main beneficiaries: Retrospectives students who work to finance their studies, job seekers who are undergoing 2014 trainings, teachers, and so many others. Nothing can justify the fact that on evenings, Sundays and school vacations, only cinemas and theaters offer spaces for culture.

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triple its surface, offering the local population new services | Africa while developing a financial autonomy. Today, CLAC is a real goldmine in terms of educational, informational and CAMEROON cultural tools and content. Open to all, it has a documental base of over 10,000 works, a multimedia space equipped With its literacy rate of 70 to 80%, Cameroon is presented with a KoomBook, a toy library and a bibliobus, the Street as a role model on the African continent. Public officials CLAC, which started circulating in February 2016. have focused their efforts on basic education, neglecting cultural venues and infrastructure. Only 11% of the country’s inhabitants have access to Internet. This limits the population’s access to knowledge and information. While over three million people reside in Yaoundé, this capital of Cameroon has very few libraries outside of those in foreign cultural centers. The few existing libraries are mostly utilized by students or by youth from privileged backgrounds, who are already familiar with books. Suburbs and rural areas are neglected.

Since 2008, BSF has supported the CLAC (Center for reading and cultural animation) in Yaoundé, created by Charles Kamdem Poeghela in 2007 and since them become one of the main cultural centers in the country. It is located in Mimboman, a low-income neighborhood in the capital. In 2011, BSF intervened to develop the documental support of CLAC, create a bookbinding workshop and train the staff to maintain and conserve books. In 2012, with the support of BSF, extensive construction work allowed the structure to

Reading room at the CLAC in Yaoundé © CLAC

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The Street CLAC NEW BIBLIOBUS FOR UNDERSERVED NEIGHBORHOODS IN YAOUNDÉ

The Street CLAC is the fruit of a collaboration between BSF and the CLAC, supported by the Société Générale Foundation. It benefits nearly 500 people per year, particularly children, unemployed youth, and illiterate women. The Street CLAC has: • A bibliobus • A documental base of over 500 books • A portable multimedia center containing computers connected to the KoomBook or to Internet • A program of rich and varied cultural and pedagogic animations, including workshops around the themes of health, environment, and legal education • A section to support the insertion of youth from low-income neighborhoods to find employment and develop professional goals. At the heart of street CLAC, one can read a comic book, learn to write a CV, or learn the basics of coding.

The Bookmobile managed by the Ministry of Arts and Culture of Cameroon, Yaoundé - In Yaoundé, the main public library is the Public Literacy October 2016 © John Kampoer Central (Centrale de Lecture Publique), which is directed by the Ministry of Arts And Culture. While it is an important step to energizing the public literacy network in Cameroon, its impact remains limited: many people cannot access it, mainly due to the growing social and geographic gap tied to the expansion of the city. BSF has been working with the Ministry of Arts and Culture to implement a bibliobus which visits Yaoundé’s peripheric neighborhoods. Over 2,000 books and tablets have been donated and sent by BSF, with another 2,000 bought locally. In May 2016, two BSF experts offered trainings to the Centrale de Lecture Publique, which manages the bibliobus: library economy, managing projects and book catalogues. Since September 2016, the bibliobus is deployed four times a week, welcoming between 20 and 150 people each time.

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BURUNDI 51 teachers and 10 administrators. These KoomBooks are now massively used by school principals and teachers to Burundi is rocked by political instability and conflicts prepare classes and exams, do research, create report in addition to being on of the poorest countries in the cards and practice using tablets. They are available in the world: in 2015, it was ranked 184th out of 188th in terms teacher lounges, and some teachers directly use them of the Human Development Index. While over half of the in class with their students. The KoomBook’s success is population is younger than 18 years old, the Burundi school undeniable: BSF has already trained 56 additional teachers system reproduces the country’s social and economic and other schools which wish to join the project. BSF is also inequalities. Classroom conditions are difficult (lack developing solutions to facilitate the use of the KoomBook: of qualified teachers, pedagogical tools, overcrowded where electricity lacks, one can install locally produced classrooms) and have gotten increasingly worse these past solar panels. few months: schools are not guaranteed to be safe, there is a severe lack of teachers, the price of school materials has In Burundi, foreign cultural centers, particularly when increased. A number of countries have halted their bilateral francophone, are also vital educational spaces, particularly cooperations, which is a major financial resource for the for teenagers, students and young adults. Since late 2015, Burundi state, particularly as relates to education. the KoomBook has been set up in the media center of the

French Institute of Burundi. It expands the media center’s In October 2016, BSF launched a pilot project in partnership reach by offering a space and activities for educational with UNICEF to answer the issue of lack of access to video games, which is aprticukalry stteactive for young educational resources for teachers, improving their training audiences and allows them to utilize the entirety of the and the quality of the lessons they offer. Four fundamental center's services. In May 2016, KoomBook kits were schools - two at Bujumbura Mairie, one at Rumonge and one also implemented within TV5 Monde's four locations in at Makamba - received KoomBook kits, whose contents were Burundi, which promote the French Language. Through selected by BSF in cooperation with the office for school the KoomBook, these cultural centers are reborn thanks programs, school principals, community educators and to a variety of activities, free or led by facilitators, such UNICEF. The Koombooks’ deployment was complemented as preparing a radio show, staging a play, or researching by a two-day technical and cultural mediation training for universities. Lastly, in September 2016, BSF sent a KoomBook kit to the organization KICORA, which is located in the Kigoma region of Tanzania, a country close to

KoomBook training session in Burundi © BSF Burundi. In this way, BSF supports the work of this center, which is used by many francophone Burundian refugees and Swahili-speaking Tanzanians, who wish to master the French language and increase their mobility towards neighboring francophone countries.

In 2017, BSF reinforced its actions around education and sharing culture in Burundi. BSF has partnered with the NGO Terre des Hommes to set up KoomBook kits in juvenile detention centers. Furthermore, two Ideas Box will be set up in the coming months for the use of street children in Bujumbura and Ngozi.

50 10 YEARS OF ACTION

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the educational system has suffered from over twenty years of conflict. In higher education, the weak support structure and lack of pedagogical tools hampers the students’ learning. Furthermore, the Democratic Republic of Congo is the African country with the largest number of French speakers (33.2 million). Access to francophone educational resources is therefore essential, and digital tools allow it to be widely spread.

BSF has been supporting education professionals in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 2010, by sending appropriate French language books and providing capacity- building for several dozens of librarians, particularly in the National School of Administration in Kinshasa. Starting in 2015, BSF took a decidedly digital turn by providing Congolese universities and higher education institutions with the KoomBook, facilitating offline access to MOOCs, open source courses generally available on Internet. The KoomBook answers the deficit of Internet connection, Using the KoomBook in a school in Rwanda - March 2017 © BSF which is often limited or nonexistent. In partnership with the French Embassy of Congo, 10 KoomBooks were initially deployed in Kinshasa universities. The program was extended to Congolese French institutes in 2016, by installing 16 new KoomBooks in Kinshasa and Bukavu. In 2017, BSF plans to project to the Goma region, with a minimum of 5 KoomBooks.

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

The Central African Republic is the African continent’s most disadvantaged country in terms of access to education and culture. The 2013 coup further weakened the education and culture sectors: lack of teachers, unadapted infrastructures, low quality of instruction, lack of pedagogic tools and means of diffusion.

In this context, the Alliance française of Bangui wished to improve the pedagogic content provided to its users and to the staff of its network, particularly regional educational centers. Since 2016, BSF has provided it with a KoomBook and trained staffers to upload pedagogical content on the interface, in order to read them directly on e-readers. After this initial test phase, other KoomBooks will be implemented in 2017 in the Central African Republic in order to make the largest possible quantity of relevant digital educational resources available.

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SENEGAL Thanks to the Ideas Box, Futur au Présent can now work beyond its walls to reach new populations. Since November Education is a major factor of development in Senegal, 2016, the media center kit is deployed in schools where, where over 40% of the population under the age of 15; the often, the children have never seen or used tablets. country is still badly affected by poverty and child labor. The initiation starts by learning how to use the drawing Casamance has been shaken by conflict for fier twenty application. Almost 9 times out of 10, after the child has years, and although it has now regained some stability, it is touched the blue color and drawn on the tablet, he raises still one of the least developed regions. his finger, looks at it, and asks why it has not turned blue.

The Ideas Box is a real way to identify children struggling in BSF supports the organization Futur au Présent, which school and gives teachers the possibility to experiment with works to reduce inequalities and poverty in Ziguinchor, new pedagogical methods. Thanks to the applications and Casamance. Since May 2016, an Ideas Box has been tablets, math becomes concrete and logical for children. deployed to animate educational and entertainment The teachers, who understand that touching and objects programs for the use of street children and out-of-school facilitate learning, reproduce the applications’ exercises in young women in the city. the playground with sticks and stones.

This installation is in the service of Futur au Présent’s goals The partnership between Futur au Présent and BSF and reinforces the quality and impact of the activities they continued in 2017 around the Ideas Box and its potential implemented: school support, literacy workshops, digital as a revenue-generating tool in the service of social literacy. The Ideas Box carefully chosen brightly colored entrepreneurship. albums and novels make a real difference in encouraging children's taste for reading.

Reading time in Ziguinchor, Senegal - March 2017 © Futur Au Présent

52 10 YEARS OF ACTION

TUNISIA AND MADAGASCAR

BUILDING DEMOCRACY BY SUPPORTING TUNISIAN LIBRARIES AFTER THE 2011 REVOLUTION In January of 2011, Tunisian libraries were badly damaged due to their proximity to governmental buildings seen as symbols of the governmental authority or to revenge from the formerregime’s Retrospectives supporters. Close to forty public libraries were sacked and burned. As spaces for 2011 debate and access to information, they were key supports of the political transition process in Tunisia. In November 2011, 10,187 books were sent by BSF to recreate the Francophone collections of libraries in Medjez El Bab, Dar Chaâbane El Fehri, Mnihla, and Kasserine.

Reading Space for Street Children in Madagascar- 2010 ©Graines de Bitume

WITH GRAINES DE BITUME, BOOKS FOR MADAGASCAR STREET CHILDREN The French-Malagasy nonprofit Graines de Bitume (Tar Seeds) works provide access to education for street children in the capital, Antananarivo, and help them gain in autonomy and integrate society. In 2010, BSF created libraries in two of the organization’s daytime welcome centers, which host 267 children: Retrospectives sending books from France, buying Malagasy books on the spot, supporting a BSF 2010 volunteer trainer for a month.

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In Detroit, starting in November 2015, the Ideas Box has | Americas been participating in the miraculous rebirth of a city ravaged by the economic crisis and declared bankrupt in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2011. In partnership with the Detroit Mayor’s Office, the Ideas Box is made available to students and children after The United States, while the world’s first economic power, school, on weekends and during school holidays. In 2016, are marked by severe territorial, social and educational BSF continued working with adults who wish to acquire inequalities. 32 million adults are illiterate. Furthermore, new skills and professional abilities by working with a 34% of the least educated Americans do not regularly use Peer 2 Peer University. “Learning circles” were created in the Internet. Detroit public libraries: autonomous study groups to follow high-quality, free online courses in real time, which cover Created in September 2008, the American branch of BSF, such topics as entrepreneurship, writing CVs, preparing Libraries Without Borders, has been leading programs to interviews, or public speaking. This group learning has expand access to education and information for poor and revealed itself to be more efficient, with higher success marginalized communities in the U.S. since 2015. rates than individual classes. BSF trained public library

staffers and encouraged them to launch their own learning In summer 2015, an Ideas Box was deployed in the Bronx circles within their communities. neighborhood of New York, with the support of the New

York Public Library and nonprofit Dream Yard. The Ideas In 2016, BSF also worked with the Native Apache community Box had a double impact: it reinforces the children's literacy on the White Mountain reservation of Arizona. Like while providing them with new horizons (digital literacy, many North American Native tribes, the White Mountain poetry); it also gives parents resources for professional Apache struggle to balance the demands of modern life development. This initial, successful pilot in the Bronx and the preservation of their cultural heritage. On the should be renewed in the summer of 2017. reservation, some students must travel two hours by car

to get to School, and the Internet is only intermittently accessible. BSF supplied the community with a KoomBook,

The Ideas Box in the Bronx, New York - August 2015 © BSF managed by high schools students who move it around the reservation and collect multimedia content on the Apache culture and language. Through these workshops, BSF has trained these students to collect testimony from their community members, conduct film interviews, and upload them onto the KoomBook. In 2017, BSF wishes to create a mobile library on the reservation, regrouping the community’s cultural and historic resources. The program may be extended to other tribes.

54 10 YEARS OF ACTION

Video testimonies were safeguarded in the KoomBook acquired by the White Mountain Apache, USA - June 2016 © Maria Ferraz/BSF

“Our school is 99% Native students, mostly Apache. They FOR THEM usually stay a bit closed in their Participating in this project has made me more own little group. Here, they had curious, more interested in places where I've to come out and approach never been. It's allowed me to explore new things. people, speak to them, and ask Whitney Lister, high school student and KoomBook questions.” user, White Mountain Apache Reservation, Arizona Ricardo Sanchez, high school teacher near the White Moun- tain Apache Reservation , Arizona

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HAITI use of displaced persons: BSF supported the reaction of libraries and book access points in close to 20 camps in Over the last few decades, chronic instability, dictatorships, 2010, creating 300 “Story Boxes” in 2012 (the predecessor and natural disasters have contributed to making Haiti the of the future Ideas Box). In parallel, BSF has continued its American continent’s poorest countries, and one of the collaboration with Haitian higher education institutions poorest and most unequal in the world. Over 10 million to support their re-establishment and plan their future. Haitians, 59% of the population, live on less than $2.42 a Through the distribution of works and training of staff, BSF day. With a literacy rate of 61%, Haiti is far behind other is also supporting the development of pedagogic training countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The country centers throughout the country, such as the Magistrate badly lacks pedagogic materials and qualified teachers. School and Tribunal of Port-au-Prince. Starting in 2012, BSF Public, educational, and university literacy initiatives are has been making literacy live for all in Haiti through three limited, and only 11.4% of the population uses Internet. The mobile libraries that travel through the island to encounter January 12, 2010 earthquake, which caused the death of rural and isolated communities: this was the birth of the 200 000 people and destroyed several buildings, made the BiblioTaptap! At the end of 2014, they were transferred to situation considerably worse: 50 to 90% of students were our local Haitian partners. BSF also supports the Port-au- displaced, and several libraries, universities, and schools Prince women’s prison, and has created an audio library were devastated. to facilitate access to books for blind and illiterate people, in partnership with the Haitian Society for support of the BSF began supporting access to information and education blind. Starting in 2015, BSF’s work in Haiti became more in Haiti as early as 2007, by sending a large number of punctual through the delivery of books and training of works to Haitian libraries and training librarians. The 2010 librarians, such as in the case of community libraries in quake interrupted several of these long term development Gonaives in 2014-2016, or in support of projects such as programs. It led BSF to reorient its action in Haiti towards Bibliomoto for Developing a youth in 2016-2017. reconstruction and creating temporary spaces for the

The Haitian nonprofit Youth in Development promotes literacy and cultural activities in South Haiti’s Aquin region. Since 2010, BSF has supported the creation and development of the organization's library. In 2016-2017, BSF successfully supported Youth in Development to collect funds for a Bibliomoto, which will visit isolated villages throughout the region.

YOUTH IN DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (2010-2017)

The State University of Haiti is the country’s largest higher education and research institute, and gathers over 20,000 students in science, medicine, literature, languages, economy, and management. The different faculties’ libraries were seriously damaged in the 2010 earthquake. From 2010 to 2014, BSF provided 36,740 books, mainly from the collections of the Ecole Normale Superieure of Paris. In 2011, BSF and the University launched the first Digital Library University of Haiti, which gives students and teachers access to millions of articles, reviews, and e-books

FRAME- STATE UNIVERSITY OF HAITI (2010-2014)

56 10 YEARS OF ACTION

The Stories Box is a kit of 100 children's books in French and Haitian creole, along with a guide and material for facilitation, which was designed by BSF and deployed by UNICEF in 300 displaced persons camps around Port-au-Prince. The objective of these kits was to facilitate literacy, make reading more accessible to children by offering them cultural and pedagogic activities, and help them discover the notion of “reading for fun.”

STORY BOX (2012)

The BiblioTaptap are mobile libraries inspired by Haiti’s brightly colored collective taxis. Which goes to directly meet vulnerable populations often excluded from cultural institutions. Facilitators offer activities around the 2,800 works which make up the three BiblioTaptap’s collections. Launched by BSF in 2012 and 2013, their direction and ownership were transferred to the Knowledge and Liberty Foundation (FOKAL), National LIbrary of Haiti, and National DIrection of Books in 2014, all historic partners of BSF in Haiti. In three years, over 65,000 children and adults were encountered in 30 of the BiblioTaptap stop sights. BIBLIOTAPTAP (2012-2014)

In early summer of 2016, our local nonprofit partner, Nicarali, implemented a KoomBook project in the Chagüitillo Library, near Sébaco, Nicaragua. Thanks to the KoomBook, young people take offline courses, mothers access vocational training, teachers provide training and organize cultural activities through videos, and the entire community is able to create content, safeguard and transmit the heritage of indigenous communities.

IN NICARAGUA WITH THE NONPROFIT NICARALI (2016)

In 2016, BSF supported the Literatura Itinerante nonprofit in setting up a BiblioTroc, a bookmobile circulating in rural and peri-urban areas in Latin America. Its original concept allowed for on-site consultation of its book collection but also the exchange of books and the possibility to barter for first necessity items.

IN SOUTH AMERICA WITH THE BOOKMO- BILE LITERATURA ITINERANTE (2016).

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home to 1,100 people, in January 2016. The second came | Asia-Pacific to the Yungngora community , in the West, in August 2016, home to almost 260 people. The two Ideas Box host AUSTRALIA activities for literacy skill reinforcement, and transmission of cultural heritage. They are popularized by children and Aboriginal and insular communities in the Strait of Torrès used in out of school activities for board games, tablets, are marked by geographic isolation, and a history of and film projection. discrimination and attempts to force assimilation into the country’s main culture. These populations now have limited In 2017, the Ideas Box will once again be moved, to the access to services and opportunities considered normal Islands in the Strait of Torres, where it will stay until elsewhere in Australia. 30% of Aboriginal adults do not the middle of the year. In the Yungngora community, a meet the standard literacy level. photographic project should be launched. We are also

studying the possibility of creating activities more oriented Two Ideas Box are now deployed in the country, born of towards an adult public. a partnership between BSF, the Queensland and Western Australian state libraries, and local councils. Set up in July 2015 in the Mapoon community of the Queensland state, the first Ideas Box was moved to the Kowanyama community,

Aboriginal children using the Ideas Box in Yungngora, Australia - September 2016 © DR

SUPPORT FRANCOPHONE TEACHERS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD To meet the demands of its local partners, BSF has implicated itself in supporting Francophone teachers, who do not always have the necessary resources to develop adequate libraries. From sending 36,750 university textbooks to the State University of Haiti to the implementation of the KoomBook in French cultural centers in Burundi, our collaborations have been rich and varied.

Retrospectives In July 2013, BSF sent 500 works of classic French language literature to schools 2013 in the Gandja region, in Azerbaijan. These works represent precious resources for French teachers and their students. They also support Francophony in this Caucasian country.

58 Entrepreneurship and social transformation

Libraries, particularly in poor countries, are often weak and isolated, with limited financial means and limited support from political powers. This reality limits their ability to intervene and impact local populations in terms of education, health, and employment. For this reason, we are supporting library actors in building innovative and sustainable economic models through revenue-generating activities built around their know-how (Internet access, trainings, educational or informational services, etc.) More generally, we will support librarians through trainings and incubation programs, helping them launch social innovation projects, and advocating so that librarians are seen as real entrepreneurs in the service of their communities.

Furthermore, we believe that libraries, which are open to all and present everywhere, are wonderful tools for stimulating a taste for entrepreneurship, creativity and collaboration, particularly among youth. For this reason, we support the creation of incubation spaces, fablabs, and coworking spaces within libraries throughout the world around this idea: suppose that, tomorrow, all 230 000 libraries in the developing world became incubators?

Strategic objectives 1. Create models for economically sustainable libraries with a strong social impact on local populations. 2. Transform the perception of librarians into that of actors for change/social entrepreneurs. 3. Stimulate a taste for entrepreneurship through libraries by transforming them into incubators for social projects.

59 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

BSF Campus "Young leaders" exchange during a training session - 2016 © BSF

10 YEARS OF EXPERIMENTATION TO BUILD viability. This search for sustainability was also led in Togo, SUSTAINABLE LIBRARY MODELS IN AFRICA where BSF worked with the libraries network of Aneho to (CAMEROON AND TOGO). FOCUS FORMATION. explore revenue-generating activities. We have also studied this question in Niger, Haiti, and Romania. For 10 years, BSF has been working with its partners to in- This search for a new, sustainable financial model has been a vent new economic models for libraries in countries in the constant part of BSF’s approach since the start, because we South. Libraries are all too often conceived outside of the know how much the French model of public literacy reaches economic space, as if they were unrelated to the social-eco- its limits when copy-pasted in low-income countries. In this nomic environment in which they are created, or overly de- context, it is essential to imagine new types of cultural en- pendent on outside economic support and without any in- trepreneurship in service of public interest. fluence on local innovation and entrepreneurship. But when they are led - most often in Anglo-Saxon countries - studies unanimously show that libraries have a lasting impact on economic development and that their investment return in real economies can be up to 10 times the initial investment. With the CLAC in Yaoundé, BSF has led several experiments to devise economic models for tomorrow’s libraries. For the past 8 years, we have worked alongside this cultural center in Cameroon to implement services (trainings, cybercafés, bookbinding centers, restaurants) to ensure its financial

60 10 YEARS OF ACTION

BSF CAMPUS: ENCOURAGE THE YOUNG LEADERS Each youth led a unique project favoring their access to OF TOMORROW’S LIBRARIES knowledge, which is developed all throughout this support session, armed with tools and methodologies (Design Thin- Launched in 2015, with the support of the Bill and Melinda king, Network, Lean Methods). The young leaders mobilize Gates Foundation, the BSF Campus program has been their networks and explore varied constellations, rethin- enacted in francophone Africa and beyond. It seeks to king social and cultural entrepreneurship based on their expand local librarians’ capacities and ability to create experiences and by building off them. change, and therefore to reinforce libraries in their roles as central actors of human and economic development. At the end of the program, the 34 young entrepreneurs for change will be in a position to participate in dynamism, BSF CAMPUS, ONLINE TRAINING PLATFORM network-building, and the transformation of local libraries, In November 15, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières launched in a lasting way. BSF Campus, a learning platform that allows library staff and francophone cultural entrepreneurs to develop new skills and reinforce their competencies for free. A COMMUNITY OF ACTORS OF CHANGE DEVELOPING IN WEST AFRICA AND BEYOND BSF Campus offers content conceived by professionals with experience working in libraries, innovation, new tech- More than a program, BSF Campus is a method which nology, management, advocacy, and evaluation. opens up practices, knowledge, and skills within libraries, in order to create an entrepreneurial and innovative dynamic. BSF Campus provides francophone library staff, particu- This frees the ability of actors in the sector of books and larly that without an initial training, with tools that allow culture to find solutions to answer local challenges. Libra- them to become entrepreneurs for change, able to create ries are thought as third spaces, as places of social trans- programs for education, training, insertion, and community formation and economic actors. advocacy within their libraries. This program summons the expertise of various library, en- In short, the BSF Campus online training platform has: trepreneurship, and innovation professionals to design the • Over 10 hours of video content platform's pedagogical materials, as well as the workshops’ • 100 lessons organized in 6 tracks content and interventions. It connects people and their • Practice exercises and the possibility for certification • A tutoring platform to support learners Young leaders during a training session in Senegal - June 2016 © BSF

YOUNG LEADERS

Young Leaders is an integral part of the BSF Campus pro- gram, whose goal is to identify and support 34 young pro- fessionals from libraries in all three countries in the region (Cameroon, Senegal, Ivory Coast). We hope to build a new generation of librarians and information specialists deter- mined to innovate and provoke social transformation.

The young leaders were selected in May 2015 to participate in the program. They benefited from being closely suppor- ted (through in-person and remote workshops) from June 2015 through November 2016 to develop their leadership, advocacy, and innovation skills. Four workshop sessions allowed the youth to acquire new knowledge, methods, and tools to improve their practices and develop this projects.

61 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

resources to the Young Leaders in order to federate their EMPLOYABILITY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP synergies in the country and beyond. This network of actors IN WEST AFRICA works in a dynamic collaborative logic of co-construction, which allows new talents to emerge and supports them wit- All throughout the world, when libraries have the means to hin local ecosystems of change entrepreneurs. do so, they serve as hubs for employability, initiative, and entrepreneurial spirit by offering trainings, connectivity, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières now works to expand BSF and spaces where public and private actors and unemployed campus and its practices all throughout the francophone persons can connect to find new solutions and create world: in Africa, but also in a Europe, where we are building synergies. Several studies led in Anglo-Saxon countries partnerships with French and African institutions. With one have showed libraries’ economic impact on employment ambition: make BSF Campus a quality label for its pedago- and growth. But in West Africa, libraries struggle to play gical content and its ability to support talents and make this role, because they lack means and a flexible mandate. them work in synergy.

In this way, BSF works to implement library projects that stimulate employment and youth initiative throughout the region by deploying Ideas Box which can, in the long term, represent veritable poles of excellence for employment by: • Dispensing hybrid, certifying trainings (remote and in-person) • Creating documentation and resource spaces on orientation, employment (job center), craftsmanship, creating businesses, etc. • Creating workshops to stimulate and accelerate entrepreneurship among youth (coworking, supporting project carriers, valuing projects, networking among different initiatives, role-modeling, etc.) • Offering concertation and innovation spaces for citizens and public and private actors to mutualize their energies and invent new solutions for employment. • Collect data (quanti et quali) on the needs of unemployed. Youth and continually capitalize best practices. • Workshop to raise awareness of social entrepreneur- ship.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS We have developed this seed library within the municipal library, which has helped to revive it after being shunned by the locals. A young local farmer is there on Wednesdays and Saturdays to welcome his colleagues. Our main goal is to preserve local seeds, which are at risk due to the industrialization of agriculture. We already have about fifty varieties of local seeds on site. Farmers wishing to recover seeds must bring a new variety of seeds in exchange, to help enrich the seed bank. And if they do not have one, they are given lessons on site.

Young Leader and creator of the seed bank in Ivory Coast

62 10 YEARS OF ACTION

The first BSF Campus training session in Ivory Coast - June 2015 © BSF

These poles of excellence will lastingly inscribe themselves Bibliothèques Sans Frontières defends the concept of a in the regions where they are enacted, and will be connected hybrid model at the confines of a classic economy, social to each other in order to create a network of platforms of impact, and public service. Today, it seems necessary to services for youth employment. deconstruct preconceived ideas about libraries and to develop innovative, economically sustainable systems, They will furthermore be created in the context of an which integrate this notion of public good and social impact initiative led in cooperation with Ashoka and seeking to and can quickly be multiplied. create centers to stimulate social innovation in Dakar and Abidjan. The poles of excellence will gravitate around these centers and rely on methodologies in support of social entrepreneurship developed by Ashoka. They will also benefit from the mentoring of the organization’s network of fellows.

63 10 YEARS OF ADVOCACY

64 10 YEARS OF ACTION 90 staff 1 300 volunteers in 2017 4 international offices 300 partners 5 10 YEARS OF field offices 3 millions ADVOCACY books collected

65 BSF, a constantly changing organization

Today, the Ideas Box is BSF’s signature project. Its Ce passage du hardware au software nous incite également financial weight represented about 67% of operations à mieux travailler notre plaidoyer, pour prouver notre in 2016, 70% in 2017. Yet BSF’s value does not lie in the impact et changer les politiques et les pratiques. En contraction of the Ideas Box, but rather in the services tes effet, BSF ne pourra jouer ce rôle de plateforme qu’en to its implementation: from identifying needs and areas of réussissant à convaincre très largement sur la nécessité de intervention to enacting content and innovative activities cette action, pour que celle-ci soit appropriée par d’autres that answer populations’ aspirations, to definingsoecific et devienne une norme d’action internationale. goals and frames of action. Many of our partners have realized this: whether libraries and cities in France or the BSF is therefore working to create a platform which will national library of Colombia, they come to us, not only mobilize thousands of individuals and organizations to receive a box, but so that we can support them in the throughout the world. This transformation will not happen implementation of their action. Here, BSF has reached one overnight, but has already started. In 2015 and 2016, BSF of our fundamental goals: interject innovation into the undertook a very daunting task: industrializing the ideas practices of actors around the world. Box to produce it better, faster, and in larger quantities. This was a crucial step in aligning our means with our ambitions, BSF must progressively move from a model of an and a prerequisite for what comes next. Now that we can organization that implements projects to a platform that build the Ideas Box in large quantities and deliver it on the provides services, an interface in the ecosystem, a catalyst ground, we must industrialize our services, and strengthen for change that supports actors implementing innovative and enlarge our know-how in terms of support, training, projects. This does not mean BSF will no longer lead and project-building. In a certain way, move beyond the projects, on the contrary, but we will re-equilibrate our Box. This is the new challenge we must undertake over the model and placement. In this context, we wish to reinforce next few years, a decisive step in the design of our 2020 our technical expertise, ability to create, support and lead strategic plan. communities based around certain practices, and provide quality tools, content and services for all those who seek to expand access to information and education for vulnerable populations. This means we must learn to better convince, create coalitions of advocates, and change norms and policies.

66 10 YEARS OF ACTION

International expansion and connecting field offices

For the past 10 years, BSF has considerably structured its BSF has also gotten considerably closer to its field offices international network, on one hand through branches and by creating regional offices over the last few years (for a subsidiaries (organizations in their own right) and offices long time, Haiti was our only international representation): (BSF representation in operating countries). • Amman office in Jordaniafor the Middle East region As of now, the American subsidiary is the most important, • Bujumbura office in Burundi, for the Great Lakes/ with three employees, a very involved advisory committee, East Africa region and several volunteers that support our work. The Swiss • Athens office in Greece for the Southern Europe branch is managed by volunteers, although we are planning region to develop its activity. The Belgian branch is the most recent • Bogota in Colombia for the Latin America region (early 2017) and will focus on developing projects in the • Dakar office in Senegal for the West African region country, as well as representing BSF before the European (under creation). Commission. We are currently studying the creation of two new branches in Canada and the United Kingdom.

This network’s legal structuration is currently being supervised pro bono by the Latham & Watkins pro bono. BSF Burundi staff at a training session in Rwanda - March 2017 © BSF The goal is to constitute an organization federation around a chart of values and ambition.

67 Men and women

From about 20 employees in 2014, BSF has gone on to BSF’s teams are further supported in their daily work by 90 full-time in 2017. The strong growth is coherent with over XXX volunteers working on a variety of projects (such the growth of our social work and organizational budget. as the Ideas Box and code travelers) in the context of book But it also shows our desire to professionalize our action collection and sorting activities in Épône, and for basic by recruiting thematic specialists and reinforcing our administrative tasks and large events. technical abilities. The Board of Directors votes the organization’s directions Bibliothèques Sans Frontières is a rapidly-growing family. and also helps define intervention strategies and methods The challenges tied to this growth are numerous (integrating of action in the context of technical commissions. new employees, managing careers, continual trainings, making sure we conform to governmental standards, etc.) but the 2016 reshaping of the organization staff allowed us to create solid bases for the future. The 2017 action plan also payed attention to managerial and administrative work to be done, such as decentralizing decision-making, capitalizing on Human Resources procedures and updating the Training Plan.

Strategy rendering at BSF HQ, Montreuil, France - December 2016 © BSF

68 10 YEARS OF ACTION

What I'm interested in the most is the whole facilitation aspect, the fact of thinking about what we will be able to transmit with the contents, to put ourselves in the place of the public, to adapt as best as possible to their needs and their desires. What is exciting is that each content makes sense: putting a book on human rights, sexism or even choosing a science book LAURIE DECAILLON, is not trivial. Like any cultural content, the book is primarily a CONTENT SELECTION OFFICER social object, because it conveys ideas, and because it creates connections between people.

My job is to put the resources at the disposal of the various projects and other departments so that all operations run as planned, and to meet the needs in time. The logistics department was created at the end of 2016, it must continue to progress and be structured. The logistics were previously assumed by everyone: purchases, shipping, reception and ABEL SOLLIER, DIRECTOR OF invoice management. Given the volume and stakes of BSF's LOGISTICS, SECURITY AND activities, it was no longer possible to continue working that way GENERAL SERVICES so everything had to be centralized. We also manage shipments, control, compliance, quality and inventory.

Information technologies (IT) are the best video game in the world: they are a strategy game because you have make plans; it is like a a Legos, in that you have to build software brick by brick; it works like multiplayer game and it happens in real time . When everything works, it's really rewarding, even though when I do my job well, no one sees it. At the IT Department, we are putting TOM FAUCHER, ICT PROJECT tools in place to make our lives easier, or stopping them from MANAGER becoming problematic, misunderstood or misused, and on which everyone can rely. This has a big influence on how the projects fit within the organization.

69 What gives me the most satisfaction in my volunteer work is to MARIE-FRANÇOISE ROBERT- share the great idea of BSF, the work accomplished in 10 years, the pride of participating in this cultural action and the prospect VOLUNTEER at the book collection of finding a "pearl" while opening a box full of books someone center and member of BSF France's donated to us! The friendliness between volunteers and the team Executive Board on site are the driving force behind my commitment.

Beyond simple recreational activities like playing domino or SUSIE NAVAL ET THOMAS the design of a chess board in clay, our job is also to program activities adapted to the public. As a migrant or refugee in France, ROSENTHAL - INTERNS in charge of it's the beginning of a new story, the challenge of the Ideas Box facilitating an Ideas Box at an emergency is not just to have a good time, it is a vector of information: we shelter in Paris. accompany its users and help them to think critically. Gradually, we offer more educational activities, especially around French culture and language such as politics or women's rights. Recently, we designed a collaborative map of Paris, where everyone can place their favorite places and share them with other residents.

Work group at the annual team get together in France - June 2017 © BSF

70 10 YEARS OF ACTION

Partnership-based actions

Since its birth, BSF has founded its operational strategy In the same logic, BSF has been working with its financial on partnership and co-creation. The idea is to support, partners, both public and private, who, since 2007, have not replace, by assisting field actors who have a better trusted in BSF’s ambitious projects. From the start, we knowledge of the local context and are on site in the long built BSF based on action and results more than on term. BSF’s logic of intervention is anchored in looking messages and communication. In this spirit, we always to transfer certain competencies as a catalysts and work with our partners in a co-creative state of mind. We facilitator for local operators, whether local communities, know that organizations, whether foundations or public organizations, authorities, or state institutions. This organizations, have their own agendas, constraints, and approach necessarily complicates our work. Supporting goals. We also know that the projects we build are stronger partners, leading trainings, and building trusting and more sustainable when they meet both our partners’ relationships takes time. Sometimes, it fails. But when we expectations and our own goals. succeed, the long-term impact is multiplied and on the ground actors are stronger when pursuing, replicating, and extending our actions. “Together, you go further.” African proverb

Training session for Ideas Box trainers in Rwanda - March 2017 © BSF

71 BSF's technical and technological expertise has helped us a lot in our fight agains the digital divide. BSF's social innovation skills serve Future au Présent in its development. Our organization really benefits from the technologies they've developed: digital tools and preloaded contents that are ready to be deployed on the field, all the while promoting open source contents. MARINE FOURIÉ- Executive Director, Futur au Présent, Senegal

BSF is a reference partner in its field. A partner committed to human development and access to information, knowledge and cultural diversity. An innovative partner who has agreed to play the game of experimentation with Cultura on a pilot project. Cultura and BSF share values, a certain idea of how to develop access to culture, and tge co-construction NATHALIE KLOCHENDLER- Chief of a great project with highly motivated and involved teams. Delegate, Cultura Foundation

Our Foundation was able to support the Ideas Box project, which was still in the research and development stage. We are happy to have trusted BSF on an innovative and ambitious project by supporting up to 80% of the Ideas Box pilot in Burundi. As founding partners of this project with a commitment over 6 years, we are proud to see how far BSF has come since thanks to its JULIEN CHAVANNE- Executive teams and other partners, and how the Ideas Box has developped Director, Pierre Bellon Foundation extraordinarily throughout the world.

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73 10 YEARS OF FINANCIAL

RESPONSABILITY74 10 YEARS OF ACTION

7.9 million euros in 2016 96% dedicated to our actions 5.5 million euros from private funds 10 YEARS OF FINANCIAL

RESPONSABILITY Déploiement des Ideas Box dans les camps de réfugiés de Kavumu et Musasa au Burundi - Février 2014. 75 hybrid economy and intervention models. We work on the | A Word principle that our intervention modalities must remain very flexible and adapt to other actors’ constraints: consortium from the Treasurer of partners funded by grants for emergency situations, The year 2016 was marked by strong growth of the direct sales to States, agencies and collectivities. The goal organization, which has considerably developed its social of these models is not to generate profit, but to diversify missions, for the third year in a row. the organization's means of funding.

This growth is mainly operational: in one year, The year 2016 was also the first closed exercise for BSF Bibliothèques Sans Frontières implemented the same Services, the commercial branch of Bibliothèques Sans amount of projects as in the last three years. This was Frontières which was created to lead revenue-generating mainly due to an acceleration of our scaling and to our activités, particularly selling used books. In consequence, various partners’ acknowledgment of the Ideas Box (NGO, the resources and expense tied to these activities are no institutional organizations, collectivities…) This resulted longer listed in the presentation of our accounts. Dividends in a reinforcement of our notoriety and visibility, which will be counted as resources next year, when they are facilitates our partnerships and implementation of the effectively delivered and will be undertaken a gain in the Ideas Box in new contexts (peace processes,...) and in new 2017 accounts. territories (Colombia, Germany, Greece, Iraq…)

In order to improve the participative approach to our projects and quality of our actions, we have made our Philippe Laffon operational models evolve by favoring direct interventions. Treasurer, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières This has translated in a reinforcement of our presence in France, with the implementation of new missions (Jordan and Colombia). This strategy has also allows us to reinforce the regional dimension of our Central Africa and Middle East interventions in order to gain visibility and initiate discussions with new potential partners.

Faced with this strong operational, financial, and human growth, and the challenge of moving the Ideas Box to a new scale, we undertook a massive reorganization operation, which led us to form new desks, create an “education, content, and training” pole, structure the logistic department….

Lastly, this growth translated into an increase of our 2016 budget, as well as the number of paid personnel in France and abroad. The organization's budget doubled this year, from 3.8 million euros in 2015 to 7.9 million euros in 2016. We had about 60 staffers in France on December 31, 2016, which was a progression of nearly 50% over the year.

The growth’s financement relies for the most part on the profit from our sales activities (mainly based from the Ideas Box) and private funds, which conforms to our strategy of diversifying our resources and our will to have a

76 10 YEARS OF ACTION

all amounts expressed in euros (€) ASSETS 2016 2015 Gross Amortization Net Net

FIXED ASSETS 213,889 39,661 174,228 187,688

Tangible assets 77,672 28,430 49,242 88,334 Intangible assets 54,360 11,231 43,129 24,101

Other financial assets 81,857 - 81,857 75,252

CURRENT ASSETS 3 571 591 3 571 591 1 502 488

In stock and ongoing - - 21,161

Advances and prepayments on 10,015 10,015 - orders Client receivables and related accounts 260,653 260 653 199,658

Other accounts receivables (1) 1,085,549 1,085,549 369,512 Liquid assets 2,197,957 2,197,957 907,715 Accruals in advance 17,264 17,264 4,290

Marketable securities 153 153 153

TOTAL ASSETS 3 785 480 39 661 3 745 819 1 690 176

1. Includes 917,468€ in subsidies to be received on an estimated prorata temporis calculation

LIABILITIES 2016 2015 Gross amount Net Net

EQUITIES AND RESERVES 149,088 149,088 182,374

Surplus/deficit carried forward 45,095 45,095 - Results for the financial year 1,329 1,329 45,094 Reserves 102,664 102,664 102,664 Other equities - - 34,617

ALLOCATED FUNDS (1) 2,899,558 2,899,558 1,097,879

DEBTS 697,173 697,173 409,923

Avances and prepayments on account (2) 162,291 162,291 -

Operating debts 513,413 513,413 409,645

Suppliers and trade payables (3) 214,096 214,096 134,183

Fiscal and social debts (4) 299,317 299,317 275,462

Other debts 21,468 21 468 278

TOTAL 3 745 819 3 745 819 1 690 176

1. Commitments to be fulfilled from designated resources: difference between the amounts received from donors and the progress of related programs. 2. Advances and prepayments on ongoing purchases. 3. Debt due to invoices received in late 2016 and settled in 2017. 4. Social security charges from the 4th trimester of 2016 debited in early 2017, provisional taxes for personal training scheme, and tax on salaries for 2016.

77 COMBINED FINANCIAL RESOURCES 2016 2015 Growth

SOCIAL MISSIONS 4,394,939 2,223,023 +98%

France 714,180 408,329 +75% International 3,401 746 1,533,950 +122% Solidarité Europe (hors France) 465,085 73,256 +535% Afrique centrale 235,147 69,466 +239% Afrique de l’Ouest 251,357 307,079 -18% Afrique de l’Est et Australe 314,349 273,263 +15% Maghreb - Moyen-Orient 878,147 146,069 +501% Caraïbes 45,294 72,606 -38% Amérique du Sud 347,882 0 - Multi-pays 804,282 526,288 +53% Océanie 60,201 65,923 -9%

Book collection program 224,186 256,315 -13% Research, information and public awareness activities 54,827 24,429 +124%

FUNDRAISING AND COMMUNICATIONS EXPENSES 178,455 97,024 +84%

ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES 460,372 375,665 +23%

Operating expenses 460,372 375,665 +23%

OVERALL USES OF FUNDS 5,033,766 2 695 713 +87%

Allocated funds (1) 2 899 558 1,097,879 +164% Results for the year 1 329 45,094 -97%

GLOBAL TOTAL 7 934 653 3,838,686 +107%

1. Commitments to be fulfilled from designated resources : difference between the amounts received from donors and the progress of related programs

USES OF FUNDS 2 % 7 % 95 % Social Administrative Missions Expenses 24 % 14 % 1 % Fundaising and Communication expenses 7 % 10 % 26 % 9 % 14 % 4 %

1 % Geographic Distribution International Social Missions

Social Missions Maghreb East & Southern Middle East Africa International 78 %

Multi-country West Africa Book collections program Europe Central Africa outside France France

South Oceania America Research, information and public awareness activities 16 % 1 % 5 % Caribbean

78 10 YEARS OF ACTION

COMBINED FINANCIAL RESOURCES 2016 2015 Growth

PRIVATE RESOURCES RESULTING FROM FUNDRAISING 5,557,268 2,738,324 103%

Membership fees 2,840 5,755 -52% Donations (2) 362,287 438,546 -17% Private grants (3) 5,192,141 2,293,803 126%

GRANTS AND OTHER PUBLIC SUBSIDIES 923,245 549,476 +68%

Public subsidies (4) 791 040 443,186 +78% Aid for recruiting 132 205 106,290 +24%

OTHER RESOURCES 1,418,160 525,914 +170%

Services provided 259,317 135,058 +92% Sale of goods 1 121,994 324,282 +246% Other resources (financial, extraordinary resources) 885 262 +238% Reversals of provisions and depreciation 35,964 15,771 +128% Capitalised production 0 50,542 -

FUNDS 35,980 24,972 +44%

Services provided 20,007 5,585 +258%

extraordinary resources 15,972 19,386 -

TOTAL DES RESSOURCES DE L’EXERCICE INSCRIT 7,934,653 3,838,686 +107% AU COMPTE DE RÉSULTAT

GLOBAL TOTAL 7,934,653 3,838,686 +107%

(2) Dont report des fonds dédiés 2015 (3) Dont report des fonds dédiés 2015 (4) Dont report des fonds dédiés 2015

DISTRIBUTION OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES PRIVAT RESOURCES RESULTING

WITHOUT CHANGING STOCK 2015 2016 FROM FUNDRAISING 2015 2016

Privat resources resulting from fundraising Private grants

2 738 324 5 557 268 2 293 803 5 192 141

Public Subsidies Donations

549 476 923 245 438 546 362 287

Other resources Membership fees

525 914 1 418 160 5 975 2 840 funds

24 972 35 980

79 | A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO TRUST US

IDEAS BOX FOUNDING PARTNERS

IDEAS BOX GLOBAL PARTNERS

OUR MAIN PRIVATE PARTNERS

OUR LATEST PARTNERS

80 10 YEARS OF ACTION

OUR MAIN NONPROFIT PARTNERS

OUR MAIN PUBLIC PARTNERS

81 Publication: Cécile Génot, Jérémy Lachal Texts: Cécile Génot, Jérémy lachal, Thomas Pascal, Quentin Chevalier English translation : LWB team, Javier Bermudez, David Kunin Graphic design: Manuella Bitor Cover: Agènes Montari Photo page 74: all rights reserved Printed on 100% recycled paper

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