Library For All’s Writers’ Workshops are a powerful tool for engaging communities in the value of literacy while telling the stories that matter to them.
A feature of our culturally relevant, age-appropriate book collections are the power for communities to tell the stories that matter to them.
When building a collection, we can focus on specific themes to address the most important issues facing that community: for example we have a disaster risk reduction collection for the Pacific.
Developing these collections through Writers’ Workshops is a powerful tool that can complement a range of program interventions for greater impact. Participants report psychosocial benefits, for example authors contributing to the Australian Our Yarning collection who had never before engaged in writing have now embraced creative writing and poetry to process their trauma.
“I wrote a book called Two Silly Frogs that addresses climate change which is an issue that my country takes very seriously because our Islands are vulnerable to the drastic effects of climate change.”
21-year-old Caroline, aspiring author from the Solomon Islands.
Library For All works with communities to create ‘mirror’ books that tell the stories that matter and reflect the lived experiences of children. In the Pacific, this increasingly means educating the next generation to mitigate the very real effects of climate change on their homes.