The Human Library is a place where people that are faced with stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination and exclusion act as Human Books. The Human Library does not focus on one topic or one minority, but touches upon discrimination problem in the broadest possible context. Therefore, Human Books come from very diverse environments. They have varied social status, religion, profession, skin tone, psychosexual identity, material status, education, ability, age, beliefs, appearance. They share a mutual goal of promoting human rights and acceptance towards differences through passing on their experience. Authors of the Human Library idea were young people centered around organisation “Stop the Violence” from Denmark, which organised the Human Library for the first time in 2000. The idea has spread over 15 years and has been used in more than 70 countries in the world. The organisation that takes care of the project and monitors the quality of Human Libraries internationally is the Human Library. In Poland Human Libraries concentrate on the network of the Human Library Poland which is coordinated by Diversja Association (Stowarzyszenie Diversja) from June 2014.

Everyone who wants to get to know another human being, find out more about their situation, beliefs and life can come to the Human Library. This is a space to verify your own stereotypes. There are no taboo subjects, lists of prepared questions, audiences nor moderators. Every Reader has 30 minutes to talk privately with a selected Human Book. Through this project we want to encourage familiarising with human rights and increase awareness concerning stereotypes, prejudice and its consequences, as well as provoke critical thinking. We seek for the Human Library to respond to current discrimination problems, social exclusion, cases of human right violations, lack of respect for human dignity. Foundation IRSE (Institute for Social and Economic Balance) coordinates actions of the Human Library Trójmiasto. So far we have organised the Human Library at Günter Grass Gallery (Galeria Guentera Grassa) in Gdańsk, Pomeranian Research and Technology Park (Pomorski Park Naukowo-Technologiczny) in Gdynia, Pomeranian Academy Library (Biblioteka Akademii Pomorskiej) in Słupsk, European Solidarity Centre Library (Biblioteka Europejskiego Centrum Solidarności), Riviera Shopping Centre (Centrum Handlowe Riviera) in Gdynia and Tortoise’s Library (Biblioteka pod Żółwiem) in Gdańsk.

We are looking for another place to host the Human Library. We invite to cooperation schools, universities, non-governmental organisations, youth clubs, public institutions, companies as well as all the people interested in organisation of this event.

Everyone interested in the joint organisation of the Human Library event, please contact us by e-mail at: biuro@irse.pl