Welcome to the Institute for Cross-cultural Exchange (ICE)/
Institut d'échanges interculturels (IEI)
Established in Calgary in 2004, ICE is dedicated to promoting literacy and cross-cultural education. Our current priority is to donate high quality illustrated books featuring stories from the Middle East and Central Asia to literacy programs serving children in need. Our literacy focus grew from a survey we conducted in 2004 in which we learned that Canadian literacy programs for disadvantaged children suffer from a severe and ongoing shortage of high quality books. The number of books requested by our partner organizations increased fivefold from 10,000 in 2007 to over 50,000 in 2009.
In just six years ICE has distributed over 62,000 books to seventy Canadian non-profit literacy groups including Success by Six (in Vancouver and Edmonton), Calgary Reads, Calgary Community Literacy Program, Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy, Frontier College, Saskatchewan Literacy Network, YWCA Vancouver, Highfield Community Enrichment Project, and the Oakville Parent Child Centre. This year we sent out The Boy without a Name and seven other titles, all by contemporary Afghan author Idries Shah.
In 2010 ICE set a goal to provide enough books to fill our current partners' needs, expand our support for Canadian programs in French and English, and provide Dari and Pashto books to children in Afghanistan.
NEWS
The Institute for Cross-Cultural Exchange (ICE) recently donated over 10,000 Dari-Pashto language storybooks to educational programs for street children and orphans in Afghanistan.
February 20, 2012
The Institute for Cross-Cultural Exchange (ICE) has donated 5,500 Dari-Pashto language storybooks to children in schools and orphanages in Afghanistan.
January 14, 2011
Fighting Illiteracy in Afghanistan is No Laughing Matter to Torontonians Or Is It? Centuries-Old Folk Hero Stars in Benefit Multicultural Laugh-Fest to Provide Books for Needy Afghan Children
October 1, 2010
More»
