Press Release 1 / 2006-2008

New President and Executive Committee Elected<br>IBBY Children in Crisis Fund

 

Today Patricia Aldana, newly elected President of IBBY announced the following exciting initiatives that were launched at IBBY's recent biennial congress in Macau, China.

A new IBBY Fund for Children in Crisis

This follows up on IBBY’s successful Tsunami Appeal, in which over CHF 100,000 has been spent to bring books and bibliotherapy to children hard hit by the 2004 Tsunami disaster.

The new fund will be available to IBBY’s National Sections and will be used to support children in regions torn by war, in a state of civil disruption, or suffering from natural disasters. An initial sum has been allocated to IBBY Lebanon.

We are appealing for funds in support of this important new initiative. Our initial concern is for children from Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Darfur, Northern Uganda and Afghanistan.

IBBY further agreed to expand its Every Child's Right to Become a Reader workshop programme using funds from the IBBY-Yamada Fund. This activity exists to ensure that children everywhere have access to books of high quality written and produced in their own countries, as well as access to the best books from the world. The workshops assist in training authors, illustrators, publishers, librarians, bibliotherapists and teachers.

Our National Sections have called on IBBY to work to ensure that books from all over the world are better known, especially in the major publishing centres. IBBY will work to promote more translations, better knowledge of the high quality literatures from around the world, and encourage greater exchanges between countries.

IBBY will continue its regular projects, such as the Hans Christian Andersen Awards, the IBBY Honour List, the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award, the Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities selections, and International Children’s Book Day, and work further to strengthen the capacity of our members to carry out IBBY’s work.

The following Executive Committee was elected at the IBBY General Assembly held on Saturday, 23 September 2006 at the Fisherman’s Wharf Convention Centre in Macau, to ensure that this work is carried forward.

 

Patricia Aldana (Canada) was elected to serve a two-year term as President of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). She previously served as a member of the IBBY Executive Committee from 1996 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2006, serving for three terms as Vice President. Born in Guatemala, Aldana came to Canada in 1971 where she has been the publisher of Groundwood Books, Toronto since 1978.

Elda Nogueira (Brazil) and Ellis Vance (USA) were nominated as Vice-Presidents. Elda Nogueira is the Liaison Officer of the Brazilian Section of IBBY, and works as a teacher and translator. Ellis Vance served as a teacher and school administrator and is currently Project Director for the California Learning Resource Network (CLRN). He is the treasurer of Bookbird Inc as well as for USBBY.

Other members elected for a two-year term on IBBY’s Executive Committee, serving until the 2008 Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark, are Anastasia Arkhipova (Russia), well-known illustrator and Honoured Artist of Russia; Niklas Bengtsson (Finland), editor and author of non-fiction for children and young people; Hannelore Daubert (Germany), university lecturer at the Institute for Research in Youth Literature at the Goethe University, Frankfurt; Reina Duarte (Spain), editor for fiction and no-fiction for young people at Editorial Edebe, Barcelona, and is currently President of the Catalan Branch of Spanish IBBY; Elena Iribarren (Venezuela/France), international co-ordinator for Bayard Presse, Paris, author and translator; Ann Lazim (UK), President of British IBBY, librarian and administrator of the CLPE poetry award; Ahmad Redza Ahmad Zhairuddin (Malaysia), Vice President of Malaysian IBBY and Executive Director of Rhythm Consolidated Berhad; Ira Saxena (India), founding member of Indian IBBY (AWIC) and author of books in Hindi and English for children.

Zohreh Ghaeni (Iran) was elected to be the Hans Christian Andersen Jury President 2008. She has worked as a teacher, book critic, instructor for illustration workshops, translator and lecturer. She is currently the supervisor and co-writer of a research project on the history of children’s literature in Iran. She was a member of the Andersen Jury for the 2002 and 2004 awards.

Liz Page (Switzerland) is the new IBBY Director of Member Services, Communications and New Projects, and Estelle Roth (France) is the new IBBY Administrative Director. Both are based at the IBBY Secretariat in Basel, Switzerland.

Urs Breitenstein (Switzerland), director of the publishing house Schwabe AG, was confirmed as Treasurer, and Peter Gyr (Switzerland) Director of the Library, Media and School Theatre Information Centre in Lucerne, and Fritz Rothacher (Switzerland) former Chief Executive Officer of the Franz Carl Weber toy company, were re-elected as auditors.

Valerie Coghlan (Ireland) and Siobhán Parkinson (Ireland) were confirmed in their role as the co-editors of IBBY’s journal Bookbird.

For more information about IBBY’s programme and current projects please contact the IBBY Secretariat or visit the IBBY website at: http://www.ibby.org