Our Human Library Book of the Month is a series of portraits of our books created with the purpose of offering our readers a chance to understand the diversity and variety within our bookshelves around the world. It also provides unique insights into the motivations and values of being a book and volunteering for our organization.

The care system might not be an easy thing to talk about, but Paris almost makes it look like it is. She is such a great speaker – with warmth in her voice, a charming London accent, and obvious experience as a public speaker. Paris’ story, on the surface, is about the care system: how she got into it, what her experience was like, and how it is affecting her to this day. Mostly, however, her story is about making a life for herself despite all that happened and how to get something positive out of what she has experienced in the system. She accomplishes this through her job as a motivational speaker, but also through being a book at the Human Library.

The Care System

Paris went into the foster system when she was six years old. “I was at school, and my teacher at the time said that she wanted to speak to me after school and that some people wanted to meet me. These were people from an organization called NSPCC, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. They explained that I was not going to go back home and that I needed to come with them.”

Paris was first taken to a hospital: “I was going to school in the middle of summer with long trousers, cardigans on and thick roller necks. The teachers knew that something was not quite right. But they were not sure, so the NSPCC, when they saw me, immediately realized that I was covered in bruises, cuts, burn marks, all sorts of horrible scars, things that had healed over time. They were concerned that there might be some internal damage.”

After two weeks, Paris was released from the hospital and went to an assessment centre. As the youngest child in the centre by far, she was treated well, but the carers lacked knowledge about raising a black child: “They did not have much clue about a black child with afro hair and black skin, so one of my earlier memories is them trying to wash my hair in the kitchen over a bowl of some sort and my hair was just all tangled. They couldn’t brush it and did not know what to do with it, so they just shaved it all off. I was teased and bullied, and that was really hard because I was so young and already so confused and upset about being in care.”

Unfortunately, her bad experiences did not end there. As her mother got sentenced to prison for four years, she went into the care system. She joined her first foster family just before she turned eight years old but soon left the family as she was bullied by one of the other children there. What followed was a slew of breakdowns of families and back and forths of different homes until she finally left the care system and got her own flat right before her 18th birthday. She knew what she wanted to do with her life then: “I was fed up and hurt by so many breakdowns in families, and angry at the world for not having a mom and dad that loved me, but at the same time, I loved school and learning. I had my sights on making my adult life as successful and happy as I could make it, and I was really determined that I would achieve as much as I could in my life.”

Life After the Care System

A question she gets asked a lot is how she has managed to overcome her difficult past. “Some of the knockbacks that I got have made me stronger and even more determined,” she explains.

“I realized in my early 20s that being angry at the world and at my past was not really going to get me anywhere, so wasn’t there a way that I could turn something so negative into something a little more positive? I started focusing on learning and giving back, doing voluntary work and helping people that were less fortunate than me.”

Besides doing voluntary work, Paris also started to make a living from motivational speaking and being a trainer. “I originally started off as a school speaker through a website, so I was speaking at schools and colleges initially. And once that grew a bit more, I became self- employed, and I left my job as a secondary school teacher and a trainer. It’s great, I absolutely love it.”

Finding the Human Library

Her experience in motivational speaking and her passion for equality are what attracted her to the Human Library. She found the website through a friend who is a Book at the Library and was immediately interested: “I was really blown away by what I read, it was a perfect fit for me.”

She applied to be a book mainly to address judgements people have towards those who have been in care. “People instantly discriminate, and unfortunately, some of that discrimination is based on statistical facts: most people that grow up in that care system do end up with very poor outcomes. They end up in prison and/or with mental health problems. I wanted to be a book so I could dispel the myth that that is what all people in care are like, that we’re all damaged goods, and we are someone to stay away from. I wanted people to have the opportunity to see another side and a different outcome,” she explains.

“If there is one thing that I want people to take away from my story, it is that I am positive and happy to be me, and I wouldn’t change anything about my past.”

Dispelling Myths and Challenging Judgements 

Paris with Readers

Fortunately, her experience at the Human Library so far has allowed her to achieve this. From the questions she gets, she senses that discrimination usually comes from ignorance rather than deliberate judgment.

“The Human Library is really important for breaking down barriers, for dispelling myths, for really getting people to unjudge. The caption ‘Unjudge Someone’ is brilliant, and I like it because there is an awareness that we all judge and that judging is an important part of human life. The Human Library gives people the opportunity to really challenge their unconscious biases and question some of the thoughts and stereotypes around all sorts of issues, and meet people they wouldn’t normally meet. Humans gravitate towoards those they feel are similar to themselves, and so they don’t meet a young black female who has been in care and also just happens to not be straight. They don’t have the opportunity, so it’s nice to share that and be part of allowing people to explore our diversity.”

The Human Library gives Paris an opportunity to talk about the care system, but especially her specific story and about “race, colour, sexuality, gender and all of those identity issues that people need to hear about from the people that are experiencing them.”

The Human Library Family

The Human Library also helps her further create more positivity and healing. “I find it’s quite therapeutic to talk about my past because it’s a difficult past. Talking about it isn’t painful because, as a motivational speaker, I talk about it a lot – but it’s therapeutic, it’s still healing.”

As she has done both online and face-to-face readings, she has also found the benefits in both. The virtual readings have given her an opportunity to meet readers from all over the world, while the face-to-face readings have given her a sense of community with the other books. “The books are all so lovely and so diverse. I find it quite exciting to be in a room with someone who describes themselves as a Satanist. I’ve met people in the Human Library that I know I wouldn’t have met in real life. Everyone is just so supportive and caring, we really do look out for one another. The Human Library family is definitely like a family, and to someone like me who has grown up as I did, that’s really important.”

Want to know more about our Books? Read about our last Books of the month, Andy and Bernadette.

The post Book of the Month: Care Experienced Child appeared first on The Human Library Organization.

Living Nowhere

Being a part of the virtual depot works well for Yoka, who stays in California during the winter and in the Netherlands during the summer. “I don’t really live anywhere,” she says, “I rent a house during the summer in Holland and I rent a house during the winter in California. Mostly, it is because I don’t like the cold. I also have family in Holland and my son is in the Czech Republic so it affords me a chance to visit them.” Yoka suspects that her experiences during the Holocaust also play a part in this. “I think I learned not to get too attached to things from a young age.”

Yoka grew up in a Jewish family in the Netherlands. When she was two and a half, she was split from her parents and placed in a different family by the Dutch Resistance. From then on, she lived in sixteen different places until she was five years old. “If you had a Jewish person in your home you would go to the concentration camps as well, so people were always very scared around me. If there was any suspicion from any of the neighbors, the Resistance would come and bring me somewhere else. I learned at that point that material things weren’t that important.”

Unaware of her Jewish heritage

While the events during her childhood had a strong influence on her, she didn’t know she was a Holocaust survivor until later in life. “No one talked about the war after it was over. As if the war never happened. Most people were too busy just surviving, and Jewish families didn’t want to know anything about it. Because if you told anyone you were Jewish, you might be the first to get caught if there was another war. So, no one told me I had been in the war. I didn’t even know I was Jewish until I was seventeen.”

Despite not knowing that she was Jewish and her dad being anti-Semitic and disapproving of everything related to  the Jewish faith, Yoka always had an interest in Jewish culture and community. “The blood crawls where it cannot go,” she says, referencing a Dutch saying meaning that you cannot hide your true self. “When I was twelve, the boy next door was learning Hebrew. I thought it was really fun, so I started learning Hebrew too. To the dismay of my father, of course.”

“Then, when I was seventeen I worked for a Jewish organization. During a meeting, they asked who wanted to turn on the light on a Saturday*. I put my hand up and told them I could do it. The woman looked at me and told me: ‘No, you can’t, you’re Jewish.’ I was like, ‘I am Jewish?’.”

*On Shabbat, Jewish people are not allowed to turn on the light, so a non-Jewish person is needed to help with this task.

It turned out that her last name is a name that is well-known within Jewish circles as a Jewish-only family. Later the same day she asked her father if they were Jewish and he confirmed their faith to her. He was unwilling to give many details, but this was the moment when she started to realize that she had been in the war. From then on, she slowly began to uncover her own story.

Joining the Human Library

Yoka joined our local book depot in Los Angeles in 2020 after someone had told her about the library and recommended she reach out. For the past forty years she has been sharing her story at schools, so it wasn’t the first time she would open up about her experiences. When the LA book depot manager, Ben, asked if she wanted to try being an international virtual book, she agreed. So far, she is loving it: “At one point I am sitting and I have three people that I’m talking to from a company. One is in Perth, Australia. One is in Singapore, and one is in China. Is that fun or is that fun?”

Besides it being fun, telling her story as a Holocaust survivor is important to Yoka. “I am a member of a fast-dying group,” she says. “When I talk about being a holocaust survivor in the Human Library, I always extend it to discrimination. Because I believe, had there not been discrimination, the Holocaust would never have happened. We, the holocaust survivors, are one of the groups that can most profoundly tell people what happens when discrimination goes unchallenged and runs rampant.”

Fighting against discrimination is something she has done her entire life. “I feel, when you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. And that’s what I’m passionate about: being part of something, however small it is, that may make a change in the world. And I think that’s what the Human Library does.”

Telling your story at The Human Library

While she has shared her story for over forty years, Yoka thinks the Human Library offers a unique environment to engage with people. “Being in a school setting, telling your story for XX minutes and then answering questions, is totally different from the communication that we encourage at the Human Library. It’s not about us books, it’s about readers confronting their own ideas. They try their ideas out on us with their particular questions, and our answers might help qualify their opinions.”

“The Human Library, which has the idea of ‘unjudge someone’, gives people a chance to look at things in a different way. I think that we are all planting seeds, even if they don’t grow the moment that we tell our readers something. The fact that they meet us and get a chance to learn from another persons perspective, will make it possible for them to change their mind at some point.”

The post Book of the Month: Holocaust Survivor appeared first on The Human Library Organization.

Recently the Human Library celebrated its 20th anniversary. Twenty years of challenging stereotypes through personal conversations in over 80 countries around the world. A cause for celebration, but also a moment to put those who help make it possible in the spotlight! This series aims to do just that, as we talk with our local book depot managers about the work they do.

Passion for Conversation

Katy at a reading in a workplace.

Katy Jon Went is a depot manager, however, she is also much more than that. As coordinator of the Human Library in the UK, Katy recruits and trains books, librarians, and depot managers, while also organizing and hosting events – both on location and online. She plays an important role within the organization, and she loves it: “I get to be in the best job on the planet – helping to create conversation with wonderful diverse, different and varied people who otherwise might not have a voice, and might be ignored by the majority”.

As she talks about her personal and professional life experiences, it becomes clear that she has a passion for conversation. For example, she has been doing diversity trainings for a long time, mainly focusing on LGBTQ+, mental health and faith. She has also spent fifteen years running a tech company, worked in PR, recently joined the board of a Canadian start-up, is part of a local theatre board, on diversity councils for her county and national media, and regularly moderates panels, among other activities.

All of these experiences taught her valuable lessons which relate to the concept of the Human Library and its focus on respectful conversations: “you don’t get permission to talk to someone unless you listen first,” Katy says, “even when it was Christian work, it was always about winning the right to talk to someone. And you won that right by respect and listening to them first.”

Talking to strangers

Katy first got involved with the Human Library twelve years ago. A few months after attending an event as a reader, she decided that she wanted to publish as a book herself. In the past dozen years, she has published under the titles of ‘ex-missionary’, ‘transgender, ‘bipolar’ and ‘non-binary’. About the various titles she explains that “labels do not necessarily define us, but they do start the conversation at the Human Library. I have described labels at the Human Library as clickbait – but in a positive way. They are like the negative headline, where the rest of the article is actually really positive about the human experience.”

After being a book for eight years, she was asked if she wanted to become more involved in the work of the UK library and she jumped at the opportunity. She loves her job and is very good at it, but it is not always easy. “Despite appearing to be very confident and sociable, I am also riddled with anxiety and panic attacks, but once I get past the initial fear, I actually love meeting strangers. Some of the best things that have happened in my life have come from talking to strangers”, she explains.

A growing community

The Human Library has grown continuously over the years. The number of volunteer books and librarians are increasing each week and to exemplify the UK developments, four years ago the library hosted 15 events in the UK, this doubled to 33 the next year and doubled again to 69 events the year before Covid.

Katy as our online librarian on Zoom.

Furthermore, the Human Library’s approach and core methodology has not really changed over the years. It was created ahead of its time and took time to develop book depots with a proper strategy to ensure sustainability and embedding with the local community.  

“It is about a person having insight into your life for thirty minutes, about exchanging experiences. It is not just giving them an autobiography. They can go buy a real book for that. One difference between a printed book and a human book is that you can stop and start the human book. You can interact with the author; you can go outside the pages.”

This is where she sees the power of the Human Library and its ability to create personal change: 

“We are not going to fight the system, we are trying to fight human nature,” she says, “we are just creating an environment to see what happens when two humans meet. It is like a chemical experiment every single time.”

However, the community each book depot creates is also a source of change, Katy thinks: 

“The books themselves end up breaking their own taboos or fears of each other,” she says, “they are a modelling community to the rest of the world. If our black book and police book can get on together, if our feminist and trans books can get on together, if our evangelical and gay books can get on together… then it proves that we all can.”

Unjudgement: a challenge for everyone

Katy had to learn to unjudge her readers as well – learning that readers can surprise you and meaningful conversations can be had even with those who seem to be against you. We all have judgements:

“At the end of the day the rest of the world sees us as something else before it sees us as humans. So even if we see ourselves as human, the world sees us first as trans, black or disabled. But if the world sees me first as those things, it is probably also how I see others. It is about recognizing the other aspects of being human: we are imperfect, we make mistakes, we do make judgements and we have unconscious biases.”

One of the biggest lessons Katy learned in the Human Library is that unjudgement is “a challenge to everyone in the human library. It is a challenge to staff, a challenge of librarians to books, books to librarians and other books, and to all of us and our readers and our readers to us. It works on every single level.”

The post We all need to unjudge appeared first on The Human Library Organization.

Our Human Library Book of the Month is a series of portraits of our books created with the purpose of offering our readers a chance to understand the diversity and variety within our bookshelves around the world. It also provides unique insights into the motivations and values of being a book and volunteering for our organization.

As the world is going through its crises leading to isolation and polarisation, it is more important than ever to stay connected and face our differences. Fortunately, the Human Library is still able to make this happen through our online reading events. This month, we have a conversation with Tanessa, who has done many online events this year under the titles ‘Black Orphan’ and ‘Pentecostal’.

Titles blending together

Tanessa from Illinois

“Every time I do a reading – especially now, being a virtual book – I actually seem to recognize more titles within myself,” Tanessa says. “There’s just lots of things that I learn about myself, just by being a book.”

She usually starts her story explaining how her foster experience was a-typical:

“Summary in a nutshell: I was in foster care. My mother abandoned me and my two sisters. She eventually passed away when I was seven. My situation was not stereotypical. Being an orphan, I only lived in one home and I lived with my siblings. I went from my mother’s house, to college, married my husband and we got our own home. I did not experience the moving around and going to different schools that is typical for foster care. I share with people that me being an orphan did not define where I was going to go in life.”

From this story, several titles emerge. “Under the umbrella of Black Orphan I can also talk about being black,” Tanessa explains. Other times, she talks more about being in an interracial marriage or being Pentecostal. That is why she calls herself an ‘interactive book’: 

“I’m an interactive book. I can see the burning questions on reader’s faces and then I’m like, go ahead!” Depending on the reader, she steers her story in different directions: “I navigate around the individual.”

Never thought the Human Library would affect me like this

Questions from readers can evoke unexpected emotions sometimes. Tanessa experienced this as well:

“I have a lot to share, and I didn’t realise that I did. This is the craziest memory that I had with the Human Library. We were training for a corporate event. This was before I even did corporate or had any experience. I never thought that I would be affected by the Human Library as much as I have been. I was sitting across from a woman and she was reading me. She asked me: ‘How did you being an orphan affect your daughters?’ and I started to talk but I just couldn’t. I just started crying,” Tanessa shares.

“After talking with my publisher, I understood that the reason why I was emotional about that was because it does affect them, and I used it against them to discipline them. And I never really thought about that until this woman was reading me and asked me that question.”

“So, with every reading I learn something new about myself through the questions my readers ask,” she concludes.

Black Lives Matter

Tanessa has noticed an increase of questions about being black since the recent Black Lives Matter protests: 

“I ask my readers how much focus they want on that, and usually they want it to be 90% of that subject. It’s up to the readers! Sometimes I am the only opportunity for them to hear our side. I could be the only person to illustrate to them that injustice towards black folks is real. I could be the only person to tell them ‘no matter how privileged a black person can be, they are going to be reminded that they are black and it is not always good’. I walk out of my door as Tanessa. And sometimes, Tanessa is the black person to someone, not just that lady.”

In relation to Black Lives Matter, she wants to tell people to listen to Black people’s experiences.

“If a cop is bad and pulls someone over with bad intentions… how would a white person know? Are they following the cops to see that? The first time I realized black people weren’t crying wolf was when I was 23, because I had never seen it first-hand until it happened to me,” she says, explaining what happened.

“Three police officers pulled me over when I was seven months pregnant. I was stopped in my mother-in-law’s driveway and because my mother in law is white, they thought I had no reason to be at these white people’s house. They emptied the contents of my car, tore out the dashboard, but wouldn’t knock on the door.”

Best questions

The best question Tanessa got so far was also related to race:

“One reader asked me if I’d rather be white, because of all the adversities that black people face. I wanted to say, ‘hell no’, but I didn’t! I just started listing off all the benefits of being black.”

She laughs as she explains why she especially appreciated that question:

 “I thought it was an awesome and brave question. Because it was a challenge. Who is going to ask that question in real life other than on virtual zoom, a million miles away? Who’s going to dare?”

The Power of the Human Library

When she first became a book, she had different expectations of the Human Library than now.

“As a new book I wanted to sit across white people and say you know what you’re doing. I wanted to be an angry black woman telling them don’t do this, don’t do this and please don’t do that. But that didn’t happen,” Tanessa explains. Now, she has learned how to unjudge the reader as well:

“I don’t want to generalize the readers. I want them to hear what my experience is. I don’t want to come off as ‘hey I’m black you’re white, I’m going to tell you what you’re doing wrong’, that’s not going to help anything. I just want them to know that some of these things are really going on!”

Over time, Tanessa says she has learned the power of dialogue:

“You can’t make laws to make other people understand and be kind to you. There is no law in the world that can stop what is in someone’s heart. But knowing someone and hearing someone may make that difference.”

The post BOOK OF THE MONTH: Black Orphan in Illinois appeared first on The Human Library Organization.

Recently the Human Library celebrated its 20th anniversary. Twenty years of challenging stereotypes through personal conversations in over 80 countries around the world. A cause for celebration, but also a moment to put those who help make it all possible in the spotlight! This series aims to do just that, as we talk with our local book depot managers about their work for the community.

Rafsan Hogue is a co-founder and the General Secretary of the Human Library in Bangladesh. He and his friends Mushfiq, Upoma and Rifa started the library with some friends in 2017, after talking about the concept during one of their daily jogs. Since then, the depot has organised eight reading events and has helped giving back to local communities in several ways.

Founding of the Human Library in Bangladesh

“Mushfiq and I used to jog every night. We would talk about different stuff around us, mostly societal issues,” Rafsan remembers. 

“Mushfiq always has a keen eye for new ideas,” he says. “One day he introduced me to the idea of the Human Library which he read about online. It felt like it was everything we were willing to do and more. So, we reached out to our good friends Upoma, Rifa and more, formed a team and applied as soon as possible.”

The group was so excited to get started they could hardly wait: 

“We were not sure if we would get the opportunity, so we were very anxious. Our application was long and we worked a lot on it. After submitting our application, we became even more anxious. We could not hold ourselves and just ended up calling Ronni before giving them enough time to see the application. We received a positive response and started from there immediately.”

Working to build understanding

Rafsan believes the concept of the Human Library aligns well with his values and interests. Even though he knew little about diversity when he grew up, he became aware of it when he started studying:

“I find Bangladesh to be a relatively homogenous country in terms of ethnic and religious diversity, as 98% of the people are ethnically Bengali and 89% are Muslim. Being born in the city, I was not aware of much diversity around me,” he explains. “However, when I started my bachelor’s on Development Studies at University of Dhaka, I was exposed to a broad forum of multi-cultural groups and students coming from different parts of the country.”

Unfortunately, he also experienced much intolerance at his university. This led him to become passionate about creating the space to help us better understand our diversity:

“While I did find a confluence of diversity, I also found many to have an aversion towards change and towards people who were seemingly different. As I cried for social justice on different fronts, I found the issue of intolerance and conflict to be something that desperately needs to be worked on.”

This passion led Rafsan to become a researcher in development. It is also the reason he and his friends started the Human Library Book Depot in Dhaka. Rafsan agrees with both the purpose and the method of the library: “To promote understanding and empathy is something that I really believe in and want to pursue. Besides, the one-on-one intimate conversation method is unique and great for impactfully sharing the message.” he says. “Therefore, I like why we do it and how we do it.”

People and their life experiences are the heart of the library

Rafsan’s main function in the Human Library is finding, training and welcoming new books. He likes working with the books, as they are key to what the Human Library is all about:

“I believe the beauty of the Human Library is in its books. The books are the heart of the library and they make our events unforgettable. I have always loved positive stories. I was always intrigued by the posts of Humans of New York and have always wanted to share stories like that. So this has been an amazing opportunity for us.”

He especially loves his own personal experience with the books:

“My favourite thing about being a depot manager is to be able to talk to the books one-on-one. The stories are the heart of the Human Library. I love listening to them. And if I get to sit with them before the event, I get to hear the uncut, unprocessed version of it and ask as many questions as I like. It is quite thrilling to find someone you do not know and have an intimate conversation.”

Publishing stigmatized frontline personnel

Every country in the world has been affected by COVID-19 in different ways. In Bangladesh, the virus has created panic and uncertainty. Mistrust towards those working in the frontline to fight the pandemic has especially been prevalent, according to Rafsan.

Therefore, the Dhaka book depot is working on an initiative called ‘Know Your Heroes’. The goal is to publish stories of those who work to improve the conditions during the pandemic:

“We wanted to highlight stories of these heroes who need to be heard, in order to reduce conflict and create a positive mindset about frontliners and people in general. We felt people needed some positive stories.”

The team is planning to publish ten stories. “Our target is also to ensure diversity in these stories so that people become aware and more empathic of different communities,” Rafsan says.

Among the heroes is a trans woman (hijra) who helped out trans communities in Bangladesh during the pandemic. Another example is the captain of the Bangladesh wheelchair cricket team, who sent resources to disabled people across the country.

This way, the Human Library in Bangladesh helps to uplift the voices of those who are often unheard, even during a pandemic!

To learn more about the Human Library Book depot in Dhaka and our work in Bangladesh, visit the facebook page.

Want to get involved in your local Human Library book depot? Volunteer here

The post Dhaka book depot manager in the spotlight appeared first on The Human Library Organization.

Ben Caron

Artist, activist and singer-songwriter. Now add book depot manager of the Human Librarys depot in Los Angeles to the list and you have a jack of all trades. Ben joined the newly formed book depot as a book in the fall of 2019 and quickly assumed a central role in the build-up of the new book collection.  

Despite the global pandemic limiting the options, Ben has been able to train around fifteen new books since January and is also training more librarians at the moment. However, he has not been alone and is thankful for the support from the HLO team. Talking about the team, Ben’s enthusiasm is clear: “every single person I have come into contact with through this project is so lovely”, he says, “everyone’s heart is in the right place and so willing to help each other and to make it work.” This attests to the kind of movement the Human Library is, he thinks: “The Human Library attracts really incredible people, people with big hearts and a drive to make the world a better place, and those are my people”. 

Before the Human Library, Ben was already involved with activism related to poverty, environmental justice, racial justice and fighting for equality related to gender and sexuality – which are all interconnecting issues, he emphasizes. 

Being a depot manager is time consuming, so why did he accept? “I believe that the thing the world needs most now is compassion and empathy, and this seems to me one of the most effective projects that I’ve come across to help build that,” Ben explains, “any project aiming at that kind of future I am willing to lend my time, energy and heart to.”

Besides, the project has been personally rewarding as well: “I have been really happy to do it because it makes me better and it makes my life better,” he says. Especially during this pandemic, the book depot has been a source of hope and provided a sense of connection. “It makes me feel positive about the future,” he admits, “and who doesn’t need hope in this time?”.

His favourite aspect of being a depot manager is training the books: “the most rewarding thing about this project so far has been watching the books share their experience for the first time in training, and understanding how powerful this experience can be”. Explaining how most of the books have never attended a Human Library event before, he adds: “The first time they experience it and their face lights up, you can just tell they are so excited about the possibilities with this library.”

The stories of the books affect him as well, both as manager and reader. An 80 year old man publishing as ‘gay’, for example, made an impact on Ben, who also published as ‘gay’: “to hear what an elder’s experience of being gay was, to hear how different it was, and how similar in some cases to my own story, was very powerful to me personally”. On the other hand, he also learns about issues he never knew much about before, when training a book publishing as Schizophrenic for example: “it’s always really powerful to check out a book that I have no idea about, then everything I am learning is new.”

In less than a year, Ben has been trained as a book and published for readers from UCLA. He has then been trained as a book depot manager and put in charge of developing the LA book depot into a community of books and librarians. His experiences have taught him that “there is a huge appetite for this kind of project in the world. We have this need to connect, need to tell our stories, a need to really listen to one another; a need to get out of our comfort zones and our bubbles and meet people that are unlike us.” Ben has noticed that many people are enthusiastic about the concept: “people are ready for the Human Library.” 

The Human Library LA Book Depot is still accepting new books. If you live near LA and have personal experiences that can help challenge stereotypes and prejudices or you want to help us publish our books at libraries, schools, conferences, festivals and virtual? Then click here to learn more from The Human Library Book FAQ!

The post LA Book Depot Manager in the spotlight appeared first on The Human Library Organization.

Ben – LA Book Depot Manager

After volunteering as a book for the Human Library last year, Ben started as depot manager in LA in January. That means he only had a few months as depot manager before everything went digital when lockdown was implemented in the US. Fortunately, however, translating the idea of the Human Library into a digital space has been going well and he admits that “during this pandemic, it has been a source of hope for me and a source of connection. It makes me feel positive about the future.” The LA depot will host their first virtual event on Unjudgement Day using Zoom with fifteen different books available to readers.

Ben is passionate about the Human Library and its capacity for change: “This is what the planet needs right now to get past our predispositions for war and violence and get to a place of diplomacy and care towards one another.”

He also emphasizes that the Human Library is relevant to current BLM protests. “The protests point out how important telling the stories and lifting the voices of black people is in this country,” he says. The Human Library can play an important role here: “This project is important because it holds a space in which black people can be heard and share their stories, and where white people can show up and learn and expand their consciousness, allowing someone else’s story to take center-stage.” The LA depot can help, as it has “some great black books, who are great at telling their stories in moving and powerful ways,” Ben explains. Their stories, among the stories of other books, can be heard for the first time during LA’s Unjudgement Day event this weekend.

Katy – UK Coordinator

Katy has been involved with the Human Library for eleven years as a book and three years as organizer and trainer based in the UK. Even though the UK’s Unjudgement Day events have been cancelled due to the pandemic, some UK-based books will be available to read on the international digital Unjudgement Day event.

Katy feels that the value of the Human Library lies in its ability to create opportunities for personal change through one-on-one conversations: “I found that one-to-ones are often more powerful than the one-to-manys, and even though that means that it will take a lot longer to improve the world we live in, if you multiply the one-to-ones happening, it can actually grow very quickly”.

The BLM protests have made her even more aware that the Human Library needs more people of color to be part of the local book depots, Katy thinks. Simultaneously, however, she emphasizes how this also means that the Library should be platforming more police officers. Furthermore, the focus on accessibility counts for all books: “As the Human Library, we should be making sure our events are not white – but also not cis, and not able-bodied. That is the whole point of the Human Library, we never focus on one group. All of our events have to have a minimum of six diversities, preferably eight, out of twelve broad categories that we recognize.”

“We are about creating the opportunity for everyone to improve and create a better world themselves,” she says, “We are not creating the world, we are creating the opportunity. And the opportunity is always a conversation.”

Rafsan – Bangladesh Book Depot Manager

Rafsan got involved with the Human Library in 2017 and played a role in co-founding the Bangladesh depot in the capital Dhaka. They have also published the books at a virtual event recently and with the feedback so far more are in the pipeline: “I think the nice part was that people were able to have a positive or thought-provoking experience in the middle of everything that has been going on. We were under strict lockdown during that time. Therefore, many were getting frustrated staying indoors day after day. Readers were able to have a fresh experience and something to think about in the middle of all this chaos.”

Like Katy, Rafsan values the Human Library for its intimate setting: “The one-on-one intimate conversation method is unique and great for impactfully sharing the message,” he says, adding that “The stories are the heart of Human Library.” While this can also happen digitally, Rafsan does miss the feeling that face-to-face conversation brings.

Currently, he is busy engaging in fundraisers related to the pandemic and helping to distribute protective material to health care workers, as the lockdown has partially lifted but cases are increasing. This is also the reason BLM protests have not taken places as much as in the UK and the US. Furthermore, racism in Bangladesh is different. 98% are ethnically Bengali, and racism comes more in the form of colourism. Still, the global protests have sparked tough conversations about this issue, and he is planning to continue this conversation in the Human Library in Bangladesh.

Need for Unjudgement

While Ben, Katy and Rafsan have been with the Human Library for different amounts of time and work in different parts of the world, their experiences and motivations for continuing their work for the Human Library during these trying times are very similar. It is all about creating opportunities to find common ground and perhaps some mutual understanding – in short: a chance to unjudge each other.

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