Radio Interview in NL and updates in UK

... yes we did a radio interview in Dutch - I really hate listening to myself speaking Dutch, but still it worked pretty well. The interviewer managed to cut out the worst bits. This was to make a portrait of Borderline Books for the Ab Harrewijn prize which we mentioned in an earlier post. In general I was quite happy with the interview, except that it missed the whole idea that it's more than just about giving books... through books you can get closer to people and gain their trust. Time after time I've seen people open up to me because they are talking about the subject of a book they are looking for rather than directly about their troubles. That way we can see what people need and maybe arrange other things - as we did last month with a trip to the Keukenhof flower park.
I have always felt that if Borderline Books is to be used as a work project it should be done in such a way that people discuss the books as they go along, talk about the content, talk about books they have enjoyed talk about things they have learned from books. This way any group-leader could learn so much more in such a relaxed atmosphere. Unfortunately the only time we experimented with that idea, the people we worked with had a completely different idea of how the project should be run. It seemed to be only concentrated on time-keeping and production - preparing people for 'real jobs'. In this way the experiment was a total failure from our point of view. They also put people into the project who had no feeling for books in the first place, so they were simply resisting the fact they were being put to work... none of that has anything to do with the way we planned or want to work.

Last month I was in the UK and went back to the YMCA in Sunderland. I had taken books there at Christmas and later heard that they wanted to build a library. One of the clients (and we are talking about young people from around 16-23) went to the local library and asked them to donate books, which they're going to do. They are also sending a librarian to talk to them about how to set up their library. This is absolutely brilliant!
Also when we went to Crisis Skylight again, bringing art books for the art department, we were told that the local library had agreed to give people library cards, using the Crisis address. That's a great step forward as you can't get a library card without an address in the normal way. The library is also making it possible for people to deliver their books back to Crisis instead of to the library if they find that easier. This is very enlightened thinking from that library and one I hope we can encourage in more places as we weave our way around the country.

So it does look as if we are making quite a mark in a short time in the UK and setting people to thinking about books.
Can't be bad!