A note from Sara, Lilipad’s Founder
Friends,
It may seem a while ago since we were asking for donations for our Global Giving campaign, but for us the work continues! Nonetheless, we’ve finally received almost all the payments, and since the beginning of the year have been working on putting those generous donations to use.
Despite the extended lockdowns in the countries in which we operate (Germany, Morocco and Uganda), we’ve already been able to use a significant portion of the money.
On February 8th, we opened our newest library in one of the biggest refugee accommodations in Berlin (GU Britz), home to 120 children. The library was supplied with 800+ books, mostly in German, and we are currently in the process of acquiring books in other languages such as Arabic, Farsi, English, etc. This will make it a truly multilingual space for the children to learn and have fun.
Thanks to the support of our local partner, the library is currently open twice a week and the response from the children has been overwhelmingly positive! At this stage, Lilipad is even discussing the possibility of hiring dedicated staff for the library - ideally a youth from the community, possibly even from the accommodation itself. We believe that our role is to facilitate and create opportunities for individuals in our communities to become true change makers, and doing so via our Lilipad librarians is an exciting initiative that we started in Uganda in 2020 and wish to reproduce today in Germany.
What have we got planned for the rest of the funds?
Thanks to the success of our latest project in Berlin, we are currently reviewing opportunities to open at least one more library - if not more! - in other refugee accommodations in Berlin. We are beyond thrilled to have formed strong bonds with our local partners (we call them ‘Local Champions’!) and thanks to their dedication and support, we are continuing to grow organically in areas where our service can have a lasting positive impact.
Once the pandemic related restrictions are lifted, we will also resume some of the activities at the heart of Lilipad’s identity, such as hosting educational events, workshops and readings in our libraries. As mentioned earlier, we want to continue building on this model of community and youth participation by hiring more Lilipad librarians.
While this would require the biggest fundraising effort we’ve ever had to go through, our experience with John, our first Lilipad librarian who was employed in Uganda in February 2020, has shown us that the presence of a young, dedicated person makes a huge difference in improving not only our service but also the overall learning opportunities for the children.
John has left the Lilipad team now, but brought us so much value. He was much more than a traditional librarian; he organised readings, helped primary school and high school children with their homework, taught them how to type and much more.Taking over from John is Winnie - but we’ll introduce you to her later.
How can you support Lilipad’s community and its activities even further?
There are a few ways to do so:
Share our Project on your social media channels once again
Let us know if the company you work for or know of any that are willing to make a corporate/gift donation
Reach out if you have any ideas or you would like to volunteer at Lilipad - currently we are looking for a Partnerships Manager
Thanks again for your support and stay tuned for the next update!
Yours,
The Lilipad Team