December is the month of charity campaigns. One of this year's charity campaigns was collecting picture books for the youngest Roma. The Roma Academic Club, promoting the meaning of education for Roma population in Slovenia, has been really thrilled by the response of the organisations and institutions that donated used picture books.
"Due to the short time frame, we had hoped to collect enough picture books to fill the shelves of two multi-purpose centres in the Prekmurje region, but we ended up helping fourteen such centres right across Slovenia. Each will receive around 90 books," said a delighted Roma Academic Club spokesperson.
The Office for National Minorities, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport and the Ministry of Culture collaborated in the campaign. Picture books were also collected and contributed by non-governmental organisations in the regions of Prekmurje and Dolenjsko.

Today the picture books were handed over to Roma councillors and other representatives of eight Roma communities, which have multi-purpose centres, and four Roma multi-purpose centres across Slovenia within which there will be reading corners for the young ones.

Rahela Hojnik Kelenc from the Adult Education Centre in Lendava said that they also provided bi-lingual, Hungarian and Slovene, picture books for children in the Lendava area. They of course did not forget picture books and stories written in the Roma language.

Picture books will attract not only children but also their parents to reading corners in Roma communities, as spending leisure time with books is beneficial for all. At the end of the festivity, participants wrote down their secret wishes on pieces of paper, which were then symbolically released into the sky with balloons.