Setting out to build a permanent library and activity centre in every Palestinian camp in Lebanon, Kitabi Kitabak is a unique project, and organiser Yara Harake is not your average Lebanese reader. ‘We have a huge library at home’, she says. ‘I was always reading everything from the age of three and up. I love reading, love books, and have always been very open to everything related to the arts.’ Was it a conscious choice, then, to try and encourage this attitude in the young in a country – and a marginalised part of it at that – where reading tends to come way down the list of a family’s priorities? ‘Yes – reading builds personality, and I want people to know that it’s important, not less than food or water or anything else.’

The idea for the project came from the established Kitabi Kitabak project in Jordan, with two functioning libraries. Unlike the Assabil Kotobus, the idea is to make a stable base for children in the camps. ‘I’ve worked with the Palestinian issue for nine years’, says Yara. ‘The situation there is very bad. Students skip school and there is no learning’. The goal of the project, then, is to enhance the importance of reading and knowledge, to provide space for the students to do what they want. ‘The kids are interested in the project, but not only books – you have to have additional activities for how to read and write, and workshops for creative writing, photography and other outside activities’.

Through donations and bookshops, Harake and her team of volunteers have already managed to gather 7,000 books for their proposed 5-16 age bracket, ready to start the first camp library in Bourj al Barajneh. But there’s the rub; political territories and lack of property mean that the independent project is on hold while it looks for a physical home. Harake, however, remains hopeful. ‘It’s only a matter of time’, she insists. Indeed, her vision encompasses not only Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian camps, but an ongoing project that can stretch to deprived areas across the country. With the joy of reading on her side, Harake’s will to cultivate it in Lebanon’s underprivileged youth remains undaunted.

For donations or information, contact Kitabi Kitabak (70 820227) or visit www.kitabikitabak-lb.com.