Tuuu Bookstore It is a project NGO Yooou which has several establishments in Madrid. The objective of this project is to avoid the destruction of books, facilitate access to reading and promote the habit of reading. Both donors and users can contact this new solidarity bookstore.
Tuuu Librería is the first bookstore in Spain in which books have the value that each one considers: each person freely chooses the donation they want to make for the books they keep. Part of the library's profits are used to send books and school supplies to schools in the Community of Madrid and to Latin American countries. The project only has one rule: you can only take the books that fit in your hands in exchange for a donation.
TuuuLibrería began its journey in September 2012. It is one of the 4 projects developed by Yooou with the aim of improve education and promote access to culture. The idea came from a similar project that has been running with great success in Baltimore, USA, since 1999, called bookthing.org.
The primary objective of TuuuLibrería is to encourage reading, bring the books close in exchange for a donation to all those who want it, without the need for them to return. In addition to books, they have a wide and varied section of DVDs.
Another of its objectives is to make the project economically viable and to be able to maintain it for as long as possible. To achieve this they need help: donations of books and DVDs, subscriptions from 12 euros a year, one-off financial donations, hours of volunteering organizing books and serving the public, etc.
In parallel to the operation of the bookstore and through specific campaigns, they send books and school supplies to countries, mainly in Latin America. The books that are sent are all for children and young people, since having an educational system other than Spanish, it would not be appropriate to send textbooks.
The books they send come from different donors: friends of TuuuLibrería, publishers, companies, etc. They then select the books and pack them. This task is normally carried out by volunteers, many of them passionate about books. These shipments also sometimes include school supplies and computer equipment that come, mostly, from donations from companies.
“The project, underway since September 2012, has been a success and we are increasingly in demand. Those who have known us since our inception can see how we have more and more books stacked on the shelves, so we have opted to open another bookstore with the aim of reaching more people ", explains Alejandro de León, founder of Tuuu Librería.
Very good initiative. Thanks for sharing!