Human Library - Bring Communities Together

Social Cohesion

Author: ELDERBERRY

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com

How can you use a library to bring people together, to get them to cook a meal around a big pot, to make the bowls and serving dishes themselves, to learn how to care for plants, or how to meditate, to learn the skills they need to apply for jobs or do interviews? This is why the Human Library projects were set up.

The Human Library concept originated in 2000 when a Copenhagen-based Stop The Violence group organized activities at Denmark’s annual Rokskilde Festival, one of Europe’s largest rock music festivals. The idea of bringing together people from diverse backgrounds has since caught on in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States;

Human Library is just one of many projects taking place in libraries across many countries in Europe and afar exploring how they can be encouraged to be used as community hubs, to connect people who use the library and might feel isolated and lonely, or to provide a social space that’s accessible for people who may be struggling and feel their community hubs are vanishing.

Using the library as a social and community hub, it provides a focal point, a place for people to go. The programme promotes health, wellbeing and is about building confidence and community identity.

What’s the activity?

Photo by Yan Krukov: https://www.pexels.com

Your task is to become a Human Library Volunteer and prepare yourself to tell your 'story'.

First, decide if you think this is something for you and what experiences you want to share, naturally you need to be motivated to answer questions from strangers and have patience and empathy.

As a volunteer you want give your time to work that is important and has a significant impact and potential for creating change.

What am I going to do?

In the reources section you will find information about what and how the human library started, it is important you read this to understand the ethos behind this initiative. Look through the website link titled, The Human Library - Time for Change and Human Library this provides you with some great tips on how to set up your own human library and gives hints and tips.

It would be helpful for you to keep the below things in mind while you prpare your activity.

Be familiar with the history and background of the Human Library.
Identify at least two or three key things you want to share with the ‘readers’ and prepare to answer difficult questions.
Be able to create the necessary print materials to host a Human Library
Be able to identify the resources you may need as a human library volunteer, do you need to take photos with you or and objects.
Be familiar with event logistics needed to host a Human Library at your facility

Finally, in the documents section there is a powerpoint presentation titled How to organise and run a human library this gives you step by step guidance on how to prepare yourself.

What will I learn?

Knowledge Acquired:

You get to meet and learn about people that will inspire you and lift you and give your network new life.
You will gain insight into what others think, believe and dream of.
You will become rich on humanity, and you may gain a greater understanding of yourself also.
Part of the knowledge acquired in this work is realising that the only thing that is not reduced when shared, is knowledge.

Skills Acquired:

Communication is the ability to convey information clearly and simply and to understand what others say to you.
Cultural competencies and the ability to understand and communicate with people from diverse backgrounds.

Attitude Acquired:

Open and honest conversations that can potentially lead to greater understanding, acceptance, and social cohesion in the community.
Ability to be diplomatic and a willingness to learn, adapt and compromise.

What will I take home?

Once you have read all the materials provided in this quest and have completed the quests you will have a greater understanding of what is a human library. You will be able to explain a Human Library is a living, breathing library where humans are the “books” and the stories are their lives. A Human Library is a way for people to reach out and connect with individuals in their community with whom they might not normally interact. Human Libraries promote tolerance, celebrate differences and encourage understanding of people who come from varied cultural or lifestyle backgrounds.

The human library is where you borrow people instead of books!

Resources
Click each section below to see all resources available.

Websites (URLs)

The Human Library - Time for Change
https://prepareforchange.net/2020/09/06/the-human-library/

Human Library
https://humanlibrary.org/about/

Videos

"Unjudge Someone" - A short film about the Human Library Organization

The Human Library - 6 Minute English

Documents

Frontline Worker Toolkit

Aims and Objectives:

Participants to understand the purpose of human library and that it creates a safe space for dialogue where topics are discussed openly between our human books and their readers.
To give a voice to the many groups that are stigmatised and to help enable platforms that support building relations and social cohesion in the community.

Top tips:

There are some fairly clear distinctions between a traditional library and a Human Library - namely, that the former loans out books, and the latter, humans. But on closer inspection, the two libraries are not so different.

Much like a typical library, at a Human Library a ‘reader’ checks out a person who is knowledgeable on a specific topic. The reader then has an allotted amount of time to ask the person questions and learn about the topic.

Human Library started in Denmark as a social movement by the group Stop The Violence group that uses dialogue to challenge stereotypes and prejudices. Readers have the opportunity to borrow from a diverse collection of peoples - a police officer, a veteran, a single mom, a Muslim, a teacher, a refugee, an autist - the list goes on.

The libraries, which have now spread to 70 countries across the world, aim to bring people together would otherwise never interact. As founder Ronni Abergal told Upworthy, it's meant to be a safe space to ask difficult questions and not to be judged. To try to gain an important insight into the life of someone you think you know something about." Human Library is as much about embracing diversity as it is about finding commonalities. Abergal wants readers to walk away from this experience with the understanding that “there are more things that we have in common than are keeping us apart.”

Though perhaps unconventional, Human Libraries may just be exactly what’s needed to break barriers, erase labels, and bring people together. After all, you never know what you can learn when you read between the lines