The Ideas Box: Connecting and Empowering Communities in the Asia-Pacific Region

Since 2012, Libraries without Borders has been working with UNHCR and designer Philippe Stark on the conception of an innovative device to enable access to information, education and culture for people emerging from humanitarian crises. Refugees have immediate pressing needs for food, shelter, health care and clothing. But once these priorities have been met, they need a way to re-establish social links, rebuild an informed civil society and develop resilience for the inevitable struggles that lay ahead. The Ideas Box aspires to fill this void, to provide
a way for people whose lives have been thrown into chaos a way to read, write, create and communicate. Through access to the Internet, computers, books, education resources, theatre and films, the Ideas Box empowers individuals and provides important tools to begin to reconstruct what has been lost. This paper presents the genesis of this innovative portable library, its first implementations for Congolese and Syrian refugees and the potential developments in the Asia-Pacific region. More information on: www.ideas-box.org