The multicultural and multilingual mobile library will travel through the countries of the five partners of READ during a
period of three years, with books and other content provided for each by all the partners in the languages of the respective
countries. While during 2021 it was touring through North Macedonia, carried out by LOJA Center for Balkan
Cooperation, this year it was organised in Serbia, by KROKODIL, and in Kosovo, by Qendra Multimedia.
“READ on Wheels” across Serbia
It had the premiere during the Festival KROKODIL, on June 17th and 18th as the venue for the Children and Youth Literature
Programme. It was officially presented as BIBLIOBUS and the programmes were announced as important part of the festival.
The activities included the communication with partners regarding the recommendations about the selection of writers
from each partner’s country. After the consultations, it was decided to invite Rudina Cupi (Albania), Erina Rrahmani
(Kosovo), Fatih Erdogan (Turkey) and Biljana Crvenkovska (North Macedonia). The local authors who participated in the events
were Srdja Andjelic-Mjehur,Nikoleta Novak, Aleksandra Jovanovic and Srdjan Tesin. Each of the foreign writers was asked to
send us excerpts from their works in order to translate them into Serbian, since the audience were children and youth. The main
idea was to engage children and youth into each writer’s works. During the first day, the children were participating in the Creative
Writing Workshop, and the second day in the Illustration Workshop. The results of the programme were presented during the second
evening programme of the festival.
After the festival, Mobile Library was on a tour that included different municipalities of Belgrade, Pancevo, Krusevac, Obrenovac
and Zabrezje. KROKODIL has found reliable partners from civic sector to coordinate different activities and promote the Mobile
Library. There were plans to go to Zrenjanin, but unfortunately, the COVID infection was present in the cooperation organisation, so the
events had to be canceled. Visits to schools was also very challenging issue. In communication with school directors, different barriers
surprisingly appeared. First, in unformal conversations directors showed concerns regarding the regional cooperation that includes
Kosovo, therefore kindly refusing to host the RoW in their schools with explanations that they have to ask for permission the Ministry
of Education, and so on. Finally, the school visit was organised on September 1st, to engage new students of the first grade, but it was
heavily raining, so the event had to be cancelled. The “READ on Wheels” tour and programmes included different Creative Workshops, Public
readings, Books exchanges, Books donations, Authors’ presentations, Debates, Exhibitions, etc. In summary, 35 programs were
organised.
