Lebanon

The Lebanese Board on Books for Young People (LBBY) was founded in 1974 after a visit of the then IBBY President, Hans Halby. The Section was formally accepted as a member of IBBY a year later. The membership includes writers, educators, illustrators, publishers, librarians and other individuals interested in children and books. Funding is provided through membership fees, some donations and fundraising activities. LBBY activities are very varied and the Section continues to seek new ideas to reach as many factions of the Lebanese society as possible. The main achievements include:

• The National Day for the Promotion of Reading is officially recognized and observed each year by a week of reading activities across the country by public and private schools, the Ministries of Education and Culture, the media, publishers, bookstores, as well as by others.
• An annual reading competition in 65 schools where LBBY provides incentives for reading, suggests books for reading, and offers prizes for the first three readers in each school, as well as a set of books for the school library.
• Over 1000 portable libraries have been donated to public schools, orphanages, social centres, municipalities and needy private schools. Due to the absence of public libraries the demands are great, but the means remain limited.
• Workshops for writers, illustrators, librarians and parents are conducted with the help of international experts and IBBY friends.
• Public awareness activities in the form of lectures, book fairs, seminars, story reading, TV interviews, talk shows, newspaper articles, conferences are provided upon request.
• A puppet show, as a springboard for the distribution of 10,000 free books per year, was performed over a period of five years. Now sadly discontinued because of lack of funding.
• An award for the best book was initiated in 2005.