Stichting Biblionef Nederland

Qui sommes-nous

Biblionef is a book donation non-profit organisation based in several countries. The organisation donates books to institutions like schools, day care centres, crèches and other organisations with an educational focus in informal settlements and rural areas. Biblionef is an international foundation and its main vision is to give children the joy of reading; children who don´t have any access to picture and reading books. Too many children have to learn to read by means of a blackboard and a piece of chalk and if they are lucky an old newspaper.

Jonkheer Mr.Maximilien Vegelin van Claerbergen, a former Dutch ambassador, initiated Biblionef in 1989 in France. The name Biblionef derives from "biblio" referring to books and "nef" referring to a ship. The organisation´s stated objective is to provide children in disadvantaged areas of the world with new storybooks

Our work
• Biblionef provides new, useful and exciting children´s books to organizations that teach and care for children.
• Biblionef is establishing book reading and library projects for schools and organizations working with deprived children throughout the world, in both English and local languages. By making books available in their native language, books which link up with their own world of experience, Biblionef tries to widen the horizon of these children and to offer them better prospects for the future.

International network
• Biblionef is an international network of 6 independently operating organizations with the same name and vision. There are Biblionef organizations in France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Surinam, Ghana and South Africa.
• Biblionef Nederland works closely together with Biblionef South Africa and Ghana. Biblionef Nederland expands the activities by setting up local (self-supporting) branches of Biblionef. To operate locally, we try to stimulate the local publishing industry.

Biblionef in the Netherlands
The activities of Biblionef Nederland are focused on:
• Supplying Surinam, Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire with new Dutch children´s books. In Paramaribo Biblionef has a storage place for books. Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire have a representative.
• Financially supporting library, literature and reading projects in South Africa, Ghana and (if possible) other countries to help organizations to set up a library, to ensure that children’s stories (also the native stories) are written or translated and published in local languages and to prove books in Braille and large print books for the visually impaired and blind children.
• Being able to satisfy the growing requests for English children´s books from countries with a development economy in Asia and Africa: mostly small scale reading projects. Biblionef co-operates with many other organizations which start projects for schools, orphanages, street- children and other child care institutions in these countries.

Bethzy Gianella Chiang is the Operations Manager of the Stichting Biblionef Nederland.

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.