dashing through the snow...

well, not exactly dashing, but doing our best to get books and more treasures to local organizations for Christmas and New Year.

We seem to have some special extras each year, and this time it is lots of wonderful stationery - lovely bound notebooks in 3 sizes, ring binders, mouse mats (the kind that work!), plastic folders, box folders, paperclips, magnet-clips and lots more - all brand new. This is all thanks to a huge donation from Staples.

Many of the local organizations helping people who are temporarily homeless arrange educational courses of many different kinds. The stationery will be a big help to people following these courses or doing workshops in creative writing. We're sure that the various women's projects will also be very happy with gifts of stationery as well as books.

We can't thank Staples enough for their generosity - not only for giving us this huge gift, but for shipping it to us from The Netherlands. - Our division in Leiden also took delivery of stationery supplies and we are also expecting a further delivery of pens and pencils.

We really need to get some more projects running in different parts of the UK. It makes little sense for everything to operate from the North-East. Ideally we should have Borderline Books projects in as many major cities as we can, so that deliveries can always be local, thus eliminating the need to drive long distances or ship books up and down the country.

We'd like to wish everyone a warm and safe 2011 - with plenty of books for all.

Giving away one million books?

Giving away a million books? - Yes a great idea, but at the same time I see this is getting publishers to print (even) more books rather than helping to find a solution to the continuing issue around pulping.
On the BBC website today

Well, yes as I say, it's a good idea, but I'd far rather see some useful self-help books being passed out to women in prison or in the probation system - or books on self-expression and self-esteem. Time after time I talk to people to see what is most needed and it's not escapist fiction but tools to help them rebuild their lives.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could get a site like the BBC to give a project such as ours some mega-publicity?
Of course, encouraging people to enjoy and share literature is lovely and wonderful, but I'm all too conscious of the people who need books to help them enjoy life.

How did it get as far as Valentine's Day before I wrote a new entry here? Life I guess.
As ever, things are in a State of Flux (voting next week...) - the project in Groningen is suspended indefinitely while they move to a new and much larger space. Pity - we just got a big grant for the project, but will have to return it as we can't do it within the specified time.
Tra la and so it goes...

In Leiden things continue as before, but since I am about to make tracks for England on a more permanent basis, we are in serious need of people to keep the project developing. We have one constant volunteer who patiently stamps all the books as they come in. We need more people to help with outreach and bright ideas - and to follow up our existing contacts.
Next week we will have a meeting to brainstorm about the future and have hopes that this will result in a new project starting up in the Hague by one of the organizations which makes regular use of our books.

In England we are still stuck with a store-room which is not sufficiently insulated, so are in serious need of a new space where we can also have volunteers working. We really need to take ALL the books out and have the builders in to sort out the dampness and put in decent insulation before that space can be used for anything.

But spring is on the way and that's when new projects can flourish, so keep an eye on this space and think along with us - we need new spaces everywhere! any town large enough to have people without homes needs a Borderline BookSpace.

We're looking to do some serious networking in the UK. Borderline Books is a super-flexible project and can fit with all sorts of existing projects... so let's get busy

One step forward, two steps sideways

Christmas is bearing down on us with ever increasing velocity. Books are being boxed up and made ready for shipping to various locations. On Friday several hundred books will be picked up ready for shipping to the UK. In Leiden we are expecting a visit from the Kessler Stichting who run a number of refuges and drop-in centres in the Hague. We have saved a number of special books for them to be given as Christmas and New Year gifts - with gift labels instead of the usual rubber stamp.

On Saturday last we attended a children’s party in Amsterdam for mainly Surinamese and Antillian children avoiding the customary Dutch phenomenon of Zwarte Piet. This ‘tradition’ involves the servant of St Nicholas, generally played by white people in blackface (a la Al Jolson), jerry curls and velvet puff pants and tights. He tends to be the fool and magically generally has a Surinamese accent. In spite of all this, some people try to say that Zwarte Piet is not ‘really black’ he got dirty coming down the chimney… well, um, did he get lipstick and a perm on the way down and why are his clothes spotlessly clean? The origins of this curious piece of Dutch folklore are shrouded in mystery and excuses. It may even date back to the days when St Nicholas was considered to have been accompanied by the devil - represented as, surprise, a Black man.

The fact that this racist tradition persists in the 21st century should perhaps not surprise us in a country that was so tardy in abolishing slavery. But the fact that at the main Schiphol airport you rarely if ever see Zwarte Piet suggests that the Dutch know perfectly well the image is offensive to many. The idea that each year Black children in Dutch schools are teased and made fun of around this time is distressing to some and infuriating to others. Zwarte Piet is represented in caricatures on wrapping paper, mobiles, stickers, cookies and chocolate as a figure akin to a golliwog – a figure which long been seen as a racist image in the UK.

Nonetheless, this party was fun, the children enjoyed themselves and we gave away more than 200 books in just a few hours. This the second time we’ve given books as presents at this party and I hope we’ll find a way to continue this much more positive tradition in the future.

We'd like to give special thanks to the Arbeiderspers and Querido who donated a huge number of books for the fourth year in succession . We are always truly thankful for this gift of quality literature, non-fiction and children's books.

Hey, did I tell you the one about how we got shortlisted to the top 12 projects out of over 100 entries to the How to Make a Difference competition run by the Community Channel . Unfortunately it was once again a case of 'always the bridesmaid, never the bride' (as me mum used to say). Disappointing at first, but once the results were published, we were really glad to see which project had won. Vision Housing .
We'll be contacting them soon to see if we can supply books to them - sounds like just the kind of project we want to work with.

This makes the fourth time we have been runners up in a competition. In 2005 we received a certificate for being in the finals of an Ashoka Changemakers competition. I looked at it today. Nice to have on the wall.
Then in 2006 we were nominated for the Samen Sociaal Prize (Social Together Prize) in The Hague. We all had to have an information table and to give a 5 minute presentation of our projects. For some unknown reason, the MC interrupted my presentation with a question (can you believe it was 'where do you come from?'). I was doing this in Dutch and was sticking to a really tight time schedule.... Well I answered him fast and continued. The winners came on and went wildly over time with their presentation, so it was very clear that they had been chosen as winners from the outset - and another nudge nudge, wink wink between one of the judges and the project at the next table suggested to me that the whole of the afternoon proceedings were little more than a pantomime. Why did they have to put the rest of us through so much suspense? I think there were 10 projects of which 3 got prizes and the rest of us a bunch of flowers.
Then in 2008 we were nominated for a prize in memory of a popular Green Party politician, Ab Harrewijn. Part of the preparation for this one was to have a short film made about the project. These films were shown on TV West, a local station. I think they were shown two or three each week. Unfortunately... we had no control of how the project was filmed and absolutely no say in the final cut, so it was very much up to luck whether or not the journalists understood what you were trying to do.
Well, the good thing was that the final 4 were all invited to The Hague to do a short interview about their projects. The winner received a prize of 5000 Euros and the runners-up 1000 Euros each. Certainly not to be sniffed at and absolutely the most useful prize to date.

So, we are always interested in any possible competitions to gain ourselves worldwide fame and gigantic cash awards ;-)
Well - even a small portion of recognition is very very welcome. I'm not complaining!

Spreading our Wings

I just got some really brilliant news.
For years I have been puzzling about what to do with all the German books we are given. No-one in the Netherlands seems to be interested. I have taken some to the UK but the one person who finds homes for them there has been somewhat overwhelmed with the quantities.

This evening a German friend living in the Netherlands said that she had just called a friend who was thinking ot setting up something similar. So who knows, we may even have a branch of Borderline Books in Germany in the next few months.

I am also working on friends in Belgium to do the same....

Meanwhile, the project in Groningen has already donated several hundred books in the provinces of Groningen and Friesland and will gradually spread to more of the northern provinces. They are also working on a project whereby they will make and lend specially designed bookshelves. - Photos soon.

I'm working on a new web design and hope that will be online in the next few weeks - in the meantime the existing site has all the information - just looking a little raggedy after 5 years.

We have also joined UnLtdWorld to assist with networking in the UK.
Don't forget - Borderline Books is built to be a portable project. If you think it would fit in with something you are doing, get in touch and we can help you get things up and running.

Refugee Week and after

Refugee Week has been and gone. We had a table at the Civic Centre in Newcastle on June 19 and did our best to make it attractive by wrapping books in pretty paper and putting labels on with the names of the organisations we have given books to in the last couple of years.
Somehow we thought that the judges for the best stands were the visitors to the event, but it seems we were all supposed to vote for each other. Never mind, better luck next year.
The positive part was that we renewed contact with a number of projects we met last year and have now added the Pakistan Cultural Society, Open Door, Acane and the Comfrey Project to our list of recipients.

The Comfrey Project has three allotments in Newcastle and Gateshead where refugees can come to practice their gardening skills, learn about growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, or simply enjoy a few hours in the open air with friends. I went to the allotment in Felling with a couple of boxes of books to be shared between the three locations. - Seeing people cry out in joy at finding books in their first languages - Arabic, Farsi, Pashto - was hugely rewarding. Books with photos of Iraq and Afghanistan were studied with interest, and not a little sadness as they portrayed these countries 25 years ago, long before they had been bombed by the Americans and the British. I hope to spend more time close to the earth with this delightful group of people.

The Pakistan Cultural Society also invited me to come to some of their events, including a poetry reading in August. This promises to be a wonderful event with poets from many parts of the world.

This week Borderline Books has given away close to 600 books in total. Apart from those already mentioned, the recipients were Direct Access, with whom we hope to work more closely in the future, Shelter, Crisis, Open Door and Acane, an organisation of African refugees in Byker.

At the end of the week we will be sending another 100 or so books on their way to a school we have been supporting in Kenya. Anyone who knows the principles of Borderline Books knows that we tend to give priority to people living in the countries where we operate - currently the Netherlands and the UK. The main reason for this is simply that there are many organisations who work to send books and other items to countries in Africa and Asia, but few who concentrate on giving similar items to the Africans and Asians who are our direct neighbours. Nonetheless, we never refuse books to people who are travelling to other countries and wish to fill their suitcases with words.

We do our best....