Czech people have contributed around half a million Czech crowns intended for the renovation of a war-devastated university library in Mosul, Iraq.
Published: Feb 2, 2018 Reading time: 2 minutes
The charitable fundraiser Let´s Help the Library! is a joint project of the library of the Faculty of Arts at Charles University and the organization People in Need. The fundraiser completed on January 31, 2018 raised about $25,000 USD for the restoration of the Central Library of Mosul University. “On behalf of the University of Mosul I would like to thank all my colleagues and all those who helped with and contributed to the fundraiser. We are very grateful for all the support our library and our whole university is getting,” said Mohammed Jassim Al Hamdany, the director of the Mosul University library.
The fundraiser Let´s Help the Library! launched on October 2, 2017, was extremely successful: in total over $13,000 USD was collected from donors. The organization People in Need is very familiar with the situation in Mosul, and believes that it is extremely important to help and support the university library. Therefore, the organization reallocated some funds from its fundraiser Real Aid to bring the total amount to $25,000 USD. The money will be used to buy equipment the library needs in order to function as a Learning and Social Centre. “We are delighted to see that the project has bore fruit and that the amount of money collected will help to gradually bring life to the university library in Mosul again. We thank all those who were not oblivious to the fate and future of the library and contributed to the fundraiser," said Klára Rösslerová, director of the CU FA Library.
The fundraiser Let´s Help the Library! has finished but you can still help
The central library of Mosul University in Iraq was one of the most important and best equipped libraries in the region. It included valuable manuscripts and old prints. During the years 2014 - 2016 Mosul was occupied by the so-called Islamic State and the library was ransacked and almost destroyed during fighting. The city of Mosul was eventually liberated in July 2017 and efforts to revive the city began immediately. The efforts also concern the University of Mosul and its central library, which has always provided its students and teachers with reliable resources for studying and teaching.
Although the fundraiser Let´s Help the Library! finished on January 31, you can still help people in Iraq and Syria. You can contribute to People in Need´s long-running collection SOS Syria and Iraq, account number 92329232/0300. ”We have been working in Iraq since 2003 and we will continue working there in the future. Millions of people in Iraq are still in need of immediate humanitarian aid. Apart from helping these people, we are trying more and more to focus on long-term programs which aim to re-establish basic services. Such as education or access to drinking water. These programs also support people who lost their livelihoods as a consequence of the conflict,” added Naďa Aliová from People in Need.
The fundraising website: www.pomozmeknihovne.cz
