Fraunhofer Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions – AICOSThe ACP Street Libraries project is now at full speed after the kickoff meeting, which was held last 29th and 30th May. The project started earlier this year and aims to contribute to the development of culture in African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries by preserving and sharing local culture, as well as promoting the creation and modernization of local Street Libraries.
The kick-off meeting, led by Fraunhofer Portugal, took place in Ghana in the presence of all partners: Volunteer Partnerships for West Africa (VPWA, a NGO in Ghana) that hosted the event, Microsoft Portugal, Appui Solidaire pour le Renforcement de l'aide au developpement (ASRAD, an association in Cameroon), and Youth Crime Watch of Liberia (YCWL, a NGO in Liberia). This meeting included open discussions about project’s orientations, management, communications, sustainability, modules, and use cases.
The meeting included a social activity with VPWA leading a visit to one of rural Ghana’s Street Libraries, which will use the platform being developed. Many Ghanaian children gathered as usual in the place prepared by VPWA to learn how to read, as well as to share and read books. All the kick-off participants were able to attend a reading lesson and interact with the young readers. ACP Street Libraries hopes to make these resources easier to share, to improve management of these remote Libraries and to take the digital contents, either written or oral, to these communities.
Back to their countries, all the partners have now restarted their work towards the ambitious goals established, as the ACP Street Libraries project expects to create new Street Libraries that can reach even more children, share digital cultural contents allowing a broader range of children accessing cultural contents and gather artists, entrepreneurs, and institutions around a digital cultural database that aims to be a cultural heritage for future generations. Because there is ‘No Future Without Culture /Pas De Futur Sans Culture’.
With the Financial contribution of the European Union (European Development Fund) and the assistance of the ACP Group of States.