2022 IBBY Appeal for Funds to support Books for Ukrainian Children in Poland

As we watch the atrocities unfolding in Ukraine, we feel quite helpless as we try to find a way to help the millions of refugees – more than half are children – as they settle in foreign countries and wait to go home.

During the recent Bologna Children’s Book Fair, we came across two projects that will help children who have recently fled to Poland. No one really knows how long these families will need to stay in Poland, but there now are over two million refugees in Poland. The project is run by a Polish organization based in Warsaw called the Universal Reading Foundation. The Foundation is a collective of around 20 Polish publishers and distributors that is leading an effort to supply books to the Ukrainian refugee children in Poland.

The Foundation has contact with Ukrainian publishers and has received printing files of picture books and story books. The Foundation is supporting Polish printers so that they can print the books and distribute them to local shelters, individuals and larger reception centres around the country. Please see the attached letter for a more detailed description of the project that is written by the CEO of the Foundation, Maria Deskur.

To donate, please use the IBBY website: IBBY Donations or donate directly.

Another project that draws awareness of the terrible consequences of war is a poster campaign initiated by the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany with the title, We Stand with Ukraine. The six posters are taken from the existing exhibition Hello Dear Enemy! Picture Books for Peace and Humanity.

The Youth Library is offering these posters as digital files that can be reproduced for schools, libraries, cultural centres and other public places. Each of the six posters are available in English and Ukrainian, together with one bilingual information poster. The charge for these 13 posters is EUR 30 for the set. The proceeds will go to the Polish foundation Fundacja Powszechnego Czytania (Foundation Reading For All), which will buy books directly from Ukrainian publishers and transport them to Poland for distribution.

Please visit the website for more information.

IBBY is supporting these two worthwhile projects that will get books into children’s hands when they most need them. Please share these two initiatives with your members, on your social media and through the press.

If your NS section or an associated group wishes to propose further ways to support Ukrainian children in exile in your country or through donations, please let IBBY know as soon as possible.  Because we assess every project that is suggested, you can be sure that we will evaluate it and are convinced that it will be helpful to these children.  When it has been approved, we shall then publicize it and ask others to do so.

In the midst of this time of anxiety, we ask that you do not forget children in tragic situations around the world, especially those in Afghanistan, Gaza, the Northern Mexican border, where IBBY already has excellent projects.

Thank you for your support.

IBBY Executive Committee