How do you explain to a child what it feels like to have to flee from home because of war?
Prompted by this question, the Fundación Tres Culturas, through its Fátima Mernissi library, developed a project to promote reading among primary school students in February and March of this year, in collaboration with CEIP Villaverde, in Fuerteventura.
Over the course of three sessions, the Foundation's library team, Olga Cuadrado and Gemma Arcos, held virtual talks with all the primary school classes in order to promote reading, raise awareness of the library and publishing profession and, of course, foster values such as diversity and interculturality.
The work selected for this project was The journeyby Francesca Sanna (Impedimenta), the first-person account, from the eyes of a child, of the tortuous journey of a family escaping the horrors of war in search of a place to make a new home, avoiding the dangers that lurk every step of the way.
The participating children showed great involvement in the activity, which, in addition to mere reading, sought to encourage debate around a literary work, to show how a library works and to promote, once again, reading as an essential tool to encourage imagination but also reflection and a critical spirit among the youngest children.