Our story

lilipad began with a simple question: what does meaningful support actually look like?

‍After leaving a job in tech, our founder set out to volunteer with a clear intention to avoid the kind of short-term, feel-good interventions that leave little behind. Through a long-distance exchange with a teacher in rural Uganda, the idea of building a library emerged as a practical and lasting initiative shaped by local reality. What followed was a small, community-led effort in Berlin: friends, artists, and colleagues came together to raise €5,000 through events. Soon after, we opened our first lilipad library with books, school materials, and a space children could actually use.

What started in Uganda quickly extended to Morocco and Germany.

In Casablanca, lilipad built a library in a local primary school rooted in personal connection and local knowledge. In Berlin, the work shifted into refugee accommodations, where children had access to public libraries in theory, but not in practice.

By 2020, five libraries had been opened across three countries, but this phase also exposed the limits of the model. Some libraries became inactive when key people left, while others lacked consistent engagement. The assumption that access alone was enough proved wrong.

This period shaped some of lilipad’s core principles:
– libraries need consistent human presence
– relationships matter more than infrastructure
– access without belonging does not lead to use

This is also when the idea of the “community librarian” began to take shape.

During the COVID years many of our libraries closed, forcing a pause and a deeper reflection.

During the COVID years many of our libraries closed, so we paused to reflect and implement some important changes. We began to shift our focus from “opening libraries” to thinking about how they are actually used.

Work in Berlin made one thing clear: the strongest impact was happening inside refugee accommodations, as we were reaching children who had the least access to safe, consistent spaces. lilipad began focusing more intentionally on these contexts.

At the same time, the organisation started to professionalise. We secured our first grants, brought in our first paid team members (2022), and a clearer programme structure began to emerge.

This was a transition phase - still largely volunteer-driven, but moving towards something more sustainable.

From 2023 onwards, lilipad began to stabilise and grow, and our community librarian model became central to our work.

We established a small core team, our fundraising increased significantly, and multi-year funding made longer-term planning possible.

In Morocco, our work expanded through a dedicated programme, supported by the Doria Feminist Fund. In January 2025, lilipad signed a national partnership with the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication.

lilipad is now entering a new phase.

With the launch of a legal entity in Morocco, the organisation is moving from project-based work towards longer-term, locally anchored structures.In addition to opening more libraries, we are paying careful attention to always enhancing our approach, maintaining quality collections of books and learning resources in every lilipad library, and ensuring that each space adapts and grows with the needs of children and their parents alike.

From the beginning, lilipad has been shaped by a clear position: we stand against top-down philanthropy that delivers books without relationship, programming without presence, and support without belonging.

We believe that children should not just be represented, but heard. And that language, culture, and storytelling are not extras, but essential to how children understand themselves and the world around them.