More than 3 million refugees and among them many, many children who left their homes only with the minimum essentials. These children need to find comfort, these children need to continue being children, they need to play, learn, read. The Ukrainian Book Institute, supported by the Federation of European Publishers, appeals to the generosity of the book world. By launching this crowdfunding campaign in Bologna with the support of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (other fairs are of course invited to join in), the Ukrainian Book Institute hopes to raise enough funds to have hundreds of thousands of children’s books printed in Europe (since the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv where the main printing works are located have been heavily bombed in Ukraine by Russia). These Ukrainian books will allow children to be entertained while keeping the link with their homeland.
Peter Kraus vom Cleff, President of the Federation of European Publishers and Ricardo Franco Levi, Vice-President and President of the Italian Publishers Association, said: “in this terrible time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, our friends and colleagues from the Ukrainian Book Institute asked us to lend support to collect money to continue printing Ukrainian books and distribute them to children. It is clear that it is our duty to help our fellow publishers in Ukraine and to make it possible for Ukrainian children to have access to books. It is important for the book world to show solidarity. If you can, please donate, all money will be spent to print books and will be managed by the UBI”.
All the money collected will be managed remotely by the UIB, responsible for choosing the titles and coordinating with local relays for the printing and distribution of the books to the children. The FEP is the guarantor of this operation.
