BOOKBRIDGE Foundation

About us

BOOKBRIDGE is a social enterprise that sets up learning centers as social businesses in rural areas of developing countries. The learning centers bring quality education to people in need and also serve as real life case studies in our "Capability Program" for international executives to learn project planning, working with multiple stakeholders and leading diverse teams in different cultural contexts.

BOOKBRIDGE strives for a worldwide balanced access to education, regardless of religious, ethnical or geographic origin. In our work, we achieve impact on both sides of the bridge.

In the Southern hemisphere we set up learning centers according to the principle "help so that people can help themselves". Reading and learning materials provide access to education. With classes and activities we foster global learning and self-determined acting. With courses for the local community based on the peer to peer learning concept, the centers are able to finance themselves. At the same time, we raise self-confidence among the community members. At the moment, we are active in ten learning centers in Mongolia and Cambodia.

In the Northern hemisphere we create a community of change makers. In the Responsibility Program, our book champions learn about educational equality in the world by getting socially engaged in a book collection. In the Fellowship Program, our fellows foster intercultural learning among and help our learning centers in their development. Finally, our learning centers serve as real life case studies in our Capability Program, a transforming leadership experience for emerging leaders to learn project planning, working with multiple stakeholders and leading diverse teams in different cultural contexts.

Our work:
• Building up Learning Centers: A learning center has three areas of activity that build on one another, as follows: READ: The learning center offers a welcoming learning environment and provides English books for children and young adults, films and games as well as books in the local language. Patrons from the community can obtain a membership card for a nominal fee. LEARN: Volunteers at the center use the English books, games and films to offer fun activities that encourage interest in the language. This also helps to emphasize the relevance of the English language: a large number of films and books are not available in the local language in either Mongolia or Cambodia. EARN: High-quality English classes are offered for young adults as a supplement to school instruction.
• Training leaders: Capability Program, where international managers from the Global North work closely together with local counterparts to develop a concept for a learning center and to invest their entrepreneurial skills in the construction of the centers. The managers themselves thereby hone their skills in strategic planning, international project management and intercultural leadership.

Carsten Rübsaamen founded BOOKBRIDGE in 2009 as part of a Boyscout exchange in Mongolia.

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.