IBBY-Yamada Fund

The Child’s Right to Become a Reader

In 2005, IBBY launched a campaign to draw attention to the right of every child to become a reader. With the generous financial contribution of the Yamada Bee Farm, which had funded several IBBY projects in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, the IBBY-Yamada Fund was established to provide grants for IBBY projects that help develop a book culture for children in all regions of the world. Each year around ten projects are selected by the Executive Committee among those presented by IBBY Members. Each approved project receives USD 5,000, and most projects have matching funding from other sources.

The range of Yamada projects is enormous, depending on the needs of the community. They span from reading promotion programmes, establishing libraries in schools and community centres, training teachers and parents in maintaining libraries and storytelling as well as workshops for writers, illustrators and editors of children's books.

IBBY-Yamada Fund Projects by Type

The range of Yamada projects is enormous, depending on the needs of the community. All of the projects aim to promote a reading culture, some of them with an emphasis on storytelling. Others involve creating books, these can be storybooks, wordless books or writing down folktales of a community.

Some projects have focused on books for pre-school children or books and projects especially for young adults. Others have been directed at selected groups of children: school classes, children with special needs, children in marginal communities and children in rural or remote communities, children who are refugees, vulnerable children and children in hospitals. To reach children in remote or poor communities mini libraries have been created on motorbikes and camels or in crates in restaurants.

Some projects aim to involve parents, specifically mothers, in encouraging reading. There have been many projects and workshops for reading promotion aimed at teachers and librarians. These are often done as part of the establishment of libraries in schools and community centres. Many projects and workshops aim to encourage local authors, illustrators and translators in creating quality books for children. There have been projects to bring together academics in the field of children’s literature, as well as projects that seek to shape government policy on reading.

Reading promotion activities can take place inside - in schools, libraries and community centres, but they can also be held outside - on street corners, in public parks, in gardens, at summer camps and by the sea. Most recently, due to restrictions related to covid-19, many projects have been held online.

Project Type		Project Example
Reading promotion through	Storytelling	Argentina 2019
	Storybooks	South Africa 2020	Armenia 2018
	Wordless books	Nepal 2020
	Folktales	Nepal 2019	Nepal 2018
Reading promotion with	Libraries	Dominican Republic 2021	Bolivia 2020
		Rwanda 2019	Zimbabwe 2018
		Peru 2018	India 2015
	Online	Costa Rica 2020	Lebanon 2020
Target audience: children	Pre-school children	Sri Lanka 2020	Peru 2016
	Young adults	Armenia 2021	Mexico 2018
		Afghanistan 2017
	School classes	Zimbabwe 2019
	Special needs	Lebanon 2020	France 2013
	Marginal communities	Afghanistan 2019	Zimbabwe 2018
	Remote or rural communities	Pakistan 2022	Armenia 2020
		Bolivia 2020	Armenia 2019
		Indonesia 2018	Mongolia 2015
	Refugees	France 2022	New Zealand 2018
		Italy 2017	Haiti 2016
	Vulnerable children	El Salvador 2020	El Salvador 2019
	Children in hospitals	Argentina 2020
Target audience: adults	Parents	India 2019	Peru 2019
	Teachers and librarians	Ghana 2021	Peru 2019
		India 2019	Armenia 2017
	Authors, illustrators, translators	Afghanistan 2019	Armenia 2015
		Zambia 2015
	Academics	Cuba 2019
	Government	Mongolia 2022 / 2016	South Africa 2016
Special themes	Environment	Ukraine 2021
	Gender	Costa Rica 2020
	Covid	Nepal 2021
Special locations	Street corners	Bolivia 2014
	Public parks	Ecuador 2012
	Gardens	Peru 2017
	Summer camps	Uganda 2019
	Seaside	Peru 2020
	Restaurants	Peru 2022

IBBY-Yamada Fund Projects 2023

IBBY Argentina
Primeros favoritos (First Favourites)
Reading programme shaped as a literary competition where children age 4–6 act as jury and engage in the evaluation of books with teachers

IBBY Armenia
Defenders of every child’s right to become a reader: the great role librarians’ in creating readers
Workshop for librarians with foreign specialists

IBBY Haiti
Reading programmes for displaced children
Bibliotherapy with children whose families have been displaced in gang related violence

IBBY Lebanon
Library for refugees
Renovation of a library and training in library practice and bibliotherapy for educators of the Jusoor centre for Syrian children refugee in Lebanon

IBBY Malaysia
Literature Therapy for Malaysian Underprivileged Children
Training workshop for teachers, volunteers, librarians and social workers, working with underprivileged children in Selangor (West Coast) and Terengganu (East Coast)

IBBY Mongolia
Building a network and increasing the capacity of children’s reading promoters in Mongolia
Creating awareness to children’s reading and providing training to reading promoters, experienced or beginners

IBBY Nepal
My Environment, a clean Environment
Creating awareness among children of the proper management of waste plastic in urban areas through books

IBBY Zimbabwe
Enhancing children’s reading rights through drama
Production of 5 audio/radio drama to introduce Zimbabwean children to local stories via community radio stations

IBBY-Yamada Fund Projects 2022

IBBY Armenia
Book Camp in Yerevan
Reading promotion activities for children from the border regions of Armenia.

IBBY Cameroon
Imagine my book, my universe II
Develop a culture of children’s book in Cameroon.

IBBY Cuba
The land in which I was born
The significance of high-quality books in communication proficiency and cultural identity.

IBBY France
Creating a library in the Emergency Accommodation Centre for Migrants

IBBY Lebanon
Bibliotherapy and anxiety in children - online training of professionals

IBBY Malaysia
Literacy development workshop and training for marginalised children

IBBY Mongolia
Assessment of Mongolian children's reading post-pandemic

IBBY Pakistan
The Camel Caravan
Bringing books where there were none

IBBY Peru
The Trust Libraries
Developing a book culture in a context of crisis

IBBY Zimbabwe
Story Reading Flyers for reading promotion at schools and at home

IBBY-Yamada Fund Projects 2021

IBBY-Yamada Fund Projects 2020

Information about the IBBY-Yamada projects from 2006 to 2019 can be found in the Archives.