A shelf of books on every street that wants one
We build small, weatherproof libraries on grocers’ walls, in mosque courtyards and health-centre waiting rooms — and stock them with books children actually want to take home.
Winter Reading Drive
₺1,284,600of ₺2,000,000
1,912 donors · 64%Ends 31 January
40 new street shelves before the spring term, each with 120 books and a year of upkeep.
- Street shelves open today
- 214
- Source: Shelf register, 1 Nov 2026
- Neighbourhoods across 11 districts
- 46
- Source: Shelf register, 1 Nov 2026
- Books borrowed in 2025
- 138,400
- Source: Volunteer tallies, audited
- Children with their first library card
- 9,820
- Source: Card register since 2019
Your gift, itemised
See exactly what it buys
We price everything we do — a shelf, a box of books, a story hour, a child’s first card. Pick an amount and watch it fill a shelf.
₺1,500 buys 1 box of picture books.
- 1box of picture books30 new books in Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic₺1,500
30 books on a shelf
Programmes
Four ways a book reaches a child
- 027.4 / SSince 2019
Street Shelves
A weatherproof cabinet on a wall people already walk past — a grocer’s, a mosque courtyard, a bus stop. No card needed to borrow; a neighbour keeps it tidy and tells us what runs out.
214 shelves · 46 neighbourhoods
- 027.6 / HSince 2020
Saturday Story Hour
One hour, every Saturday at 11:00, at 38 shelves. Volunteers trained by children’s librarians read aloud, then help each child choose a book to take home.
1,760 sessions in 2025
- 028.5 / MSince 2021
Mother-Tongue Books
A third of the children we meet grew up speaking Kurdish, Arabic or Persian at home. We buy and commission picture books in those languages, side by side with Turkish.
4,300 titles in 4 languages
- 362.1 / WSince 2023
Waiting-Room Shelves
Family health centres hold a child for 40 minutes on average. We put a shelf in the waiting room and let them take the book home if the story isn’t finished.
19 health centres
From the shelves
What a shelf changes
“My son walks past the shelf on the way to school. Now he leaves ten minutes early so he can swap his book. I didn’t make him do that — the shelf did.”
“I keep the shelf outside my shop. People come for the books and buy bread. Mostly they come for the books.”
How a shelf opens
From a request to a full shelf in six weeks
A neighbour asks
Anyone can nominate a wall. Most requests come from parents and shopkeepers.
Week 1We find a keeper
Someone who passes the shelf daily agrees to tidy it and send a monthly count.
Weeks 2–3The shelf goes up
Built by a carpentry co-op in Bayrampaşa, stocked with 120 books chosen for that street.
Weeks 4–5It reports back
Every count goes into the public shelf register, so donors see what their shelf did.
Every month
Volunteer
Read aloud on a Saturday morning
Two hours of training with a children’s librarian, then one Saturday a month at a shelf near you. Next training: 7 December, Kadıköy.
