Hmm... how can a library come to life? It is enough to replace paper books with people. How can it help us educatively? Books are people who were perceived stereotypically in their lives, someone was prejudiced against them...

A person living with a disability, a teacher, a former prisoner, a member of a sexual minority, an immigrant ... Each of these people may be exposed to misperceptions. If we have never had a personal chance in our lives to ask representatives of these parts of our community about their lives, we can create a wrong idea about them. 

In our communities, people are discriminated against because of their past, profession, origin, religion, beliefs, orientation, skin color...

The Living Library was created to challenge prejudices against all who experience them. A conversation with a Living Book can be the beginning of a search for reliable information, and meeting an authentic person can help answer questions that we would not normally have a chance to ask.

WHY WE USE THIS METHOD

The structure of the Living Library, not necessarily in the classic extended edition, can be useful in many initiatives carried out with young people. Thus, the members of our organization initially used it to diversify the discussion of many project topics with young people. Still, we need to remember that method-based workshops and a real extended Living Library event are two different things. In order to prepare and conduct a classic and official Living Library event, you need to be very well prepared, know all the rules, the logistic structure of the project, have access to books suitable for this (not everyone can be a book!) and gain experience. Therefore, in July 2018, we took part in a training course organized by our Czech partner, the Brno for you organization, which had extensive experience in the implementation of Living Library events. An additional advantage of this course was the participation of the certified trainer of the Living Library community, Dorota Mołodyńska-Küntzel, who shared her valuable experience. This course prepared us for further local and international activities. Here you will find what we have done so far with the acquired knowledge ;-)