Small libraries, in the places no library reaches.
Everything we do moves a book closer to a child on the migrant journey. These are the projects doing that work right now.
Library clubs
Every week, Rise Up & Read brings stories to life in migrant shelters and tent encampments across Mexico City through our Library Clubs. We create welcoming reading spaces filled with books, games, and hands-on activities where children can learn, imagine, and simply enjoy being kids. Families come from many countries and speak many different languages, but stories have a remarkable way of bringing everyone together, creating moments of connection, laughter, and belonging.
Migrant center libraries
Beyond our weekly Library Clubs, we help establish and support permanent libraries in migrant centers throughout Mexico City, ensuring children have ongoing access to multilingual books and safe, quiet places to read. Whether for an afternoon or several months, every child deserves the opportunity to discover the joy, comfort, and hope that a good book can provide.
Virtual library
Through our partnership with Télécoms Sans Frontières, Rise Up & Read extends the reach of our Virtual Library to 21 migrant centers across the migration route, from Colombia to Mexico. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, our stories reached 2,700 migrants in centers in Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia and were broadcast for nearly 30,000 minutes.
This means thousands of children who may never visit one of our physical libraries are still able to listen to stories. For children living with uncertainty and constant change, a story can offer something invaluable: a moment of joy, imagination, and connection—a chance, for a little while, to simply be children.
Open the library →
Service learning
Service learning is at the heart of Rise Up & Read. Our work is made possible by volunteers of all ages and backgrounds—from graduate students at CIDE University in Mexico City and Montclair State University in New Jersey to high school and middle school students eager to make a difference.
Together, these volunteers help create books, lead reading activities, support Library Clubs, organize donations, and build meaningful connections with children on the move. Through service learning, students do more than volunteer—they learn about migration, literacy, community, and the power of showing up for others.
Reading together
A book only works when it's opened. We work with parents and caregivers on the value of reading — how a daily story builds a child's language, steadies emotions, and strengthens the bond between them.
Every project runs on donated books and small gifts.
Help us open the next library club.