Libraries Without Borders US
It's an urgent matter. The need to read. Make a donation!
From Rural France to Refugee Camps in Bangladesh
Since 2007, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (BSF), our parent organization, has worked tirelessly to promote access to information across the world—from refugee camps in Bangladesh to rural areas in France. Since its founding, BSF has rooted its work in empowering and uplifting the voices of communities in need.
A decade after BSF’s founding, BSF expanded its work to Cox’s Bazar district, Bangladesh. While the nature of the work continues to evolve, BSF remains committed to expanding critical access to information and education to the community living in Cox’s Bazar district, especially in light of the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since 2017, Bangladesh has hosted over 860,000 Rohingya, a Muslim minority who fled mass atrocities and discrimination in Myanmar. The district of Cox’s Bazar is now home to many of the over one million Rhoingya living in Bangladesh. The majority of these refugees are currently concentrated in the Kutupalong camp (the largest refugee camp in the world) and have little access to informational and educational resources.
In 2017 and in collaboration with the the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and Première Urgence Internationale (PUI), BSF conducted focus group discussions with 86 refugees in three different Kutupalong camps (camps 17, 6 and 8E) along with 26 people within the host communities of Thelikhali in Palongkhali Union. Through these focus group discussions, BSF uncovered large educational gaps and a significant lack of community spaces with relevant cultural resources in the refugee camps and neighboring communities.
In recognition of these gaps, BSF opened their Bangladesh field office in 2018—employing both a program manager and cultural mediator. This office used the focus group research as well as collaboration with the Open Society Foundation to inform its programmatic work in these communities. Initially, and in collaboration with Plan International and Première Urgence Internationale (PUI), BSF hosted two programs; one a theater program for adolescent girls to build confidence and the other, a workshop designed to hone boys’ interview skills and map-reading abilities. As BSF in Bangladesh expands the scope of their work, they consistently strive to design and implement each program based on the changing needs of the community.
Continuing BSF’s work in Bangladesh, in 2019 the team provided 10 Ideas Cubes and installed five Ideas Boxes in the district of Cox’s Bazar – three in Rohingya refugee camps and two in surrounding host populations. The Ideas Cube is an autonomous and ultra-portable digital library that provides wireless access to thousands of digital resources. It effectively creates a WiFi hotspot and is uploaded with children’s stories and educational activities from the “Bengal Boi”, Sesame Street Bangladesh, CODEC, Room to Read, and Bishwa Shahita Kendra. The Ideas Box, founded in 2013, is a portable media center that unfolds to 100 square meters and can accommodate an average of 70 people at a time, with an average of 500 people per day.
