Visitors to the Darling Harbour precinct this April will be delighted to see the beautiful Children’s International Street Library Project in-situ underneath the Pier St Underpass.
Facilitated by the staff and volunteers of City North Men’s Shed (CNMS), with support from Placemaking New South Wales, the project celebrates linguistic diversity and community connections and highlights the importance of literacy, language and storytelling as vehicles for celebrating cultural and community diversity.
“In this day and age it is more important than ever to foster community connections which traverse language barriers, generation gaps and any other socio-economic hurdles,” says CNMS Community Officer, Mel Tait.
The Street Libraries, assembled by the men and women of the CNMS and decorated with the assistance of students from the Fort Street and Gawura schools, have been filled with children’s books in 20 different languages to reflect the language groups represented at these schools.
Special thanks to the Thai and Canadian Embassies, the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, various private donors and the City of Sydney for their generous book donations and contributions to the libraries.
Be sure to visit Darling Harbour this April to enjoy this excellent initiative. And if you have books in languages other than English to donate, let us know!
