“Reading is an act of resistance”. If this assertion of Daniel Pennac proves itself true, one understands why dictators and liberticidal leaders fear the power of words and books. Because it’s when they read, that people develop their abilities to think, to understand and to judge objectively. Reading hands the keys to the world and is the royal path towards the acceptance of differences, the acceptance of new ideas and tolerance, the acceptance of others. To read is to fight against ideologies that trample democratic and citizen values.

According to some data and the public opinion, the education system applied in school is literally archaic and has been needing an update for 20 years now. It doesn’t match with the current education needs and the students’ level is really low, plus the fact that cities are deprived of libraries and reading spaces.

As Nelson Mandela used to say, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Education is the strongest weapon. And we believe achieving quality education is the sine qua non of the development of a community. The term “development” here refers to change, to growth, to improvement over a long period of time. Today, this notion of development tends to only emphasize short terms priorities satisfaction at the expense of long-term ones that are vital for the development of countries and communities.

Access to quality education as mentioned by SDG 4, is a fundamental right for every citizen. Thereby we have decided, at the light of the alarming facts surrounding the subject of education, to allow citizens, and children especially, to benefit from this fundamental right that is theirs. At the occasion of the World Children’s day, we have built the following project: One School Inspection, One Book Box. This project consists in the establishment of a mini-library in each of the school inspections located in our municipality of Abobo (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire).

Cornerstones of the public reading spaces network, libraries are key places to cultivate the notions of living together, where the landmarks of a shared cultures are laid and where social bonds can be woven and strengthened.

Beyond the buildings, the bookshelves, and the other material equipment, a library will always be a place of freedom, where anyone can read whatever he wants the way he wants to; a place where knowledge and pleasure, still far too often opposed, are finally reunited. The objectives of this project are the amelioration of the conditions the children of our municipality are learning in, and to contribute to the development of the reading and book culture in the municipality. These objectives are intended to be reached by offering ways to practice reading and gain new knowledge and information for free.

However, it must be recognized that setting up a library requires a lot of logistics such as the place and the books.  So, to do this, we adapted the project to the local realities and the means at our disposal. We have opted for Book Boxes that we have made by ourselves; people will be able to freely choose a book, read it and return it at any time. For the books acquisition, we launched a call for donation over a of 2 months period.

 We’ve started the project with the Primary School Inspection of Agnissankoi which received today its mini-library, or "book box" as we like to call it. We also plan to equip all the other School Inspections of the municipality with mini-libraries to allow the children of Abobo to benefit from local libraries and therefore receive full-fledged quality education.

As a reminder, Abobo is a municipality, located in the northern part of the district of Abidjan. It has as neighbors the city of Anyama to the north, the cities of Williamsville, Adjamé and II Plateaux to the south, Cocody-Angré to the East and the Banco forest to the West. Located at an altitude of 125 meters, the municipality constitutes the highest zone of the agglomeration of Abidjan and one of the most populated municipalities of the district with a population of approximately 1500000 inhabitants on an area of ​​10000 ha. Today, Abobo is a bedroom suburb with a cosmopolitan population very active in the sectors of informal trades and services. It has played for a long time the role of safe haven for migrants considered to be low-income people.