Sharjah IBBY Fund to Select New Beneficiaries at Bologna Book Fair 2017

Preparations for the sixth Advisory Committee meeting of the Sharjah IBBY Fund at Italy’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair are underway. The committee will reconvene at a meeting, scheduled to take place on April 4, 2017, to evaluate projects which received the Fund’s support last year, in addition to reviewing fresh proposals, which are in the running to become the Fund’s beneficiaries in 2017.  

The rationale behind the Sharjah IBBY Fund is to support children affected by war, natural disasters, crises, and poverty in the Central Asian and North African (CANA) region. It was launched in 2012 by the UAE Board on Books for Young People (UAEBBY) and the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) with the generous support of the Sharjah Government. The Fund has been developed to support long-term projects in the CANA region, which are committed to fulfilling every child’s right to reading by ensuring easy access to books.

Among the eight proposals received in 2017, the Advisory Committee will be deliberating on a wide range of projects covering reading programmes, training for children in 21st century skills, audio books aimed at promoting the benefits of listening to stories, workshops for mothers who will be taught to read to their babies, projects aimed at protecting and supporting children in areas of conflict, and others.   

To date, the Sharjah IBBY Fund has supported 11 projects submitted by different IBBY national sections in CANA region. It also funded the participation of CANA section representatives at three international conferences and the organisation of the 2013 CANA regional conference in Sharjah.

The Fund’s Advisory Committee is chaired by Sheikha Bodour Bint Sultan Al Qasimi, Founder and Patron of the UAEBBY, and includes Marwa Al Aqroubi, President of the UAEBBY’s Executive Board; Ahmed bin Rakkad Al Ameri, Chairman of Sharjah Book Authority (SBA); Patricia Aldana, President of the IBBY Foundation; Hasmig Chahinian, IBBY Executive Committee Representative; and Shereen Kreidieh, IBBY’s CANA Region Representative.

The UAEBBY is the national branch of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), a non-profit organization, which represents an international network of people from all over the world who are committed to bringing books and children together.