Iraqi Literacy Drive A Response to Extremism
An Iraqi youth group has organized a reading event in Baghdad to promote a literary culture and fight extremism.
With the help of Iraqi intellectuals, 21 young volunteers inaugurated a large arena for group reading on Sept. 28 on Abu Nawas Street in central Baghdad. These young people, who included five girls, placed books in the gardens overlooking the Tigris River in a plan to encourage people to read.
Last year, this group launched the same initiative from Baghdad toward several provinces, and the project was warmly welcomed in the staunchly religious cities of Karbala and Najaf.
Over the last six months, the group collected books from intellectuals, donors and from the personal libraries of deceased writers in order to repeat the great group-reading day.
The youth, who founded the “I am Iraqi … I read” initiative, have revived the outdoor reading experience amid a fragile security situation, escalating political differences and warnings about the outbreak of a wave of internal displacement and sectarian war.
