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Literacy is inseparable from opportunity, and opportunity is inseperable from freedom. The freedom promised by literacy is both freedom from – from ignorance, oppression, poverty – and freedom to – to do new things, to make choices, to learn.

Koichiro Matsuura

Welcome to our website! We are passionate about making a difference in the lives of the children in our community, so that they can be afforded the opportunities to make a difference. Our goal is simply this:

To empower this and future generations of the children of Iga, to write their own futures and create their own opportunities, by providing them with a place to gain knowledge and explore possibilities limited only by imagination and ambition

You can read more here about ‘Our Mission Statement’.

The village of Iga consists of between 4000 to 6000 people. Of these roughly a third are school age children, from kindergarten upwards. There is no shortage of schools in the area and its surrounds; however good schools are hard to come by.
The lack of a robust utilities infrastructure means that schools require enormous capital investment that few, if any, of the individuals and/or organizations who run the schools can provide.
In addition, its location means that it is difficult to attract good teachers; it is several hours drive from a large city making it unattractive to young, talented and enthusiastic teachers.

This library project will provide an excellent way to supplement the education that is being provided, however flawed. It will provide initially for all the children of Iga, starting with enough buildings built to support and house 400 children at a time, with plans shown here to expand to four or five thousand over an 18 month time frame, in a series of connected, modular, circular buildings.
 
Our vision is to continue to expand the library and its extended buildings and services, to provide for the surrounding villages, eventually providing a free bus service to allow children to visit the library freely from neighbouring villages.

How You Can Help

Donate! Donate! Donate! Tell your friends, tell your family, tell people on the street!

We have finalized the details for our fundraiser event and we are very, very excited about it. It will take place on a new date to be announced shortly at the Samuell Grand Tennis Center. We have some very special things planned, you can find all the details here: ‘Tennis, Music and Friends’! So mark your calendars, bring your family, bring your friends, it will be an absolute blast!