We are engaged in various projects nationally and internationally that promote reading for children and young people as well as the dialog between people of different cultures. With our workshops and seminars for specialists, teams and students we offer further education in the area of intercultural literature for young people. Please read more about our activities.

During one week, primary school children work on a book under artistic direction at the end of their school time together. In the process, they depict the world in which they live and show in close-ups what is important to them. At the end, the collages and texts come together to form one whole book.
We successfully realised the project week for the first time with a primary school class in Basel at the end of June 2022. A project report will follow.
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For the 25th edition of Kolibri, our list of recommendations for children's literature, ten authors and illustrators have been invited to create a small book. All of them have made their own experiences in migration, although under completely different circumstances. This has resulted in a publication under the titel «Ein neues Kapitel» (A new chapter). The box contains 7 booklets and 9 languages.This edition is not for sale but our gift to libraries, schools and grassroot initiatives working with children and young adults who immigrated to Switzerland and are currently opening a new chapter in their life …
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Baobab Books is starting in May 2017 a new project to promote reading skills in collaboration with the Pumpernickel Company and Basel's Museum der Kulturen. The project is based on the award-winning book Eine Geschichte ohne Ende – «O fim da fila» in Portuguese − by the Brazilian Illustrator Marcelo Pimentel. The book deploys its story without any written text. With illustrations as unique inspiration it is being developed and told through the eyes of the viewer, each time new and different. During the project week the children are creating their own interpretation of the story which they will act on the stage.
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Baobab Books has made intercultural dialogue its mission: We want to enable children and teenagers to experience the diversity of our world, and we want the voices of people from different cultures to be heard. Books are an excellent medium to do both these things. In places where books are not yet readily available, we encourage book production and promote reading. In 2013, a new initiative got off to a promising start in Taiwan, where Baobab Books hosted a workshop for indigenous artists on cultural identity in children’s books. In 2018 it was already the fith workshop Baobab Books conducted in collaboration with the National Living Art Centre in Taitung.
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In the crisis-stricken Democratic Republic of Congo you hardly find publishers and a distribution network is basically inexistant. Books are priced excessively, and of the sparsley published books only very few get through to the rural areas at all. Based in the province Kasai Central, the cooperative Bidiep Bidiep is the partner organisation in our latest initiative: With Baobab's support a scheme to promote literacy is currently being implemented in Kamutanga.
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World in Books, our project to promote reading and writing skills, has sucessfully been implemented in countries such as Tanzania and Taiwan. In June 2016 we have succesfully started a new initiative in Mozambique.
Not many people have access to books easily in Mozambique, not even in a city like Chimoio, where our partner organisation is located. The Centro Aberto wants to change that. Three staff members were trained as multipliers. As a conclusion, a plan of action was drawn up at the end of the training. A local book production and the opening of a library are the mid term goals.
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The aim of the project "Mondomedia – Open Libraries", which is administered by the Baobab Books, is to encourage public libraries to stock foreign language books and other media for the migrant population and to involve themselves actively with their foreign-language-speaking users.
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In a bilingual project both German and French speaking children develop their own short stories through drawings, writing and sound – based on the picture book Das machen wir from India. Over the course of one week the stories are created and recorded, and, finally, all elements are integrated in an interactive electronical system. If you draw on the touch screen the stories will be heard.
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All books published by Baobab Books have one thing in common: They tell a local story authentically but at the same time the contain a universal core, so that the book is reaching out to the young reader no matter where. On the other hand, every book of our programme has a different background and took a long way to being published in German. So does the book «Als die Sonne ein Kind war» («NeNe Sol») from the Tzotzil-Maya in the Mexican Highlands of Chiapas.
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Together with terre des hommes schweiz we started a project in Tanzania a few years ago to promote local literature and reading skills. If you visit the small town of Geita today, you will find a public library and an incredible amount of locally written and  produced books. A story of success!
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The Gond artist Durga Bai was six years old when sitting beside her mother, she learnt the art of digna, the traditional designs painted on the walls and floors of houses during weddings and festivals. Now she lives in Bhopal. Her work is still rooted in her birthplace, Burbaspur, a village in the Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh. She tells in her drawings and paintings the myths, the folktales and about the life of the Gond, one of India's indigenous ethnies.
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