PRONI Center for Youth Development has set up small free street libraries at five locations in Mostar, from which citizens will be able to take a book to read and return it, as well add new books.
The activity was implemented as part of the project “Kreiraj sve (mir)”, and libraries were set up in front of the SPES Center for Children and Youth, the National Theater, the Croatian National Theater, in the newly renovated park in Ulica maršala Tita and in front of the Cultural Center.
According to the project PR Harun Šetka, the realization of the project started half a year ago and during that time a large number of activities were done, and the final one is the creation of street libraries.
“For the last two months, we have been dealing with the culture and cultural wealth of the City of Mostar, and finally, on World Book Day, we decided to donate five street libraries to the City. Each of them will be placed in front of an institution, they will be open 24 hours a day and everyone can come, read a book, leave a book or take something they like from the already available content,” said Šetka.
He expressed hope that the established libraries will last a long time and invited all citizens to come and participate in this activity.
“In the past seven days, we have collected about three hundred books, and in the next period we will try to collect more. We hope that libraries will live as long as possible, and I invite all citizens who have extra books in their home to bring it and donate it to the street library, because someone will read it,” said Šetka.
Speaking about the importance of the project, the student of the Mostar Grammar School, Danis Čomić, said that through these activities, young people can find out more about writers from our region, learn more interesting information, and visit some of the museums they may not have known existed.
“It is also interesting that we can have public libraries in the city, considering that books are totally forgotten in our country at the moment, and I think that books should be more accessible, cheaper and more interesting. I hope that people will notice this and that they will bring some books that they have at home that they do not need”, said Čomić.
The creation of street libraries is implemented within the project “Kreiraj sve (mir)” which is implemented with the support of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Resilience Initiative (BHRI), implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), with financial support from the United States Agency for International Development).
