Book Wish Foundation is a nonprofit organization providing financial and material support for reading-related programs targeting people in crisis around the world. Through partnerships with organizations that work on the ground in distressed places, we deliver reading relief that can improve education, mental health, and occupational training. Our current project serves Darfur refugees and villagers in eastern Chad.

Reading relief is a concept much broader than providing books. It encompasses all of the aid for community institutions and individuals that makes reading possible. This includes, for example, support for libraries, schools, informal literacy and language programs, and vision care. To provide relief, this aid must match the specific needs that exist, which vary according to the crisis situation, culture, language, demographics, educational history, and aspirations of the people being served. These needs form the basis of the Wish Lists on our website, and provide an opportunity for highly targeted giving.

We focus on people in crisis because they may face problems so grave that reading relief is not a major component of the aid they receive, although reading may have a great positive impact on their lives. Refugees, internally displaced people, school-aged children not in school, the homeless, the critically ill, and the desperately poor are among the populations we aim to reach.