Our Vision
To give children in developing communities hope for the
future through nourishing their minds and bodies with
books and water.
Our Mission
WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water is a California
501(c)(3) organization that donates books and literacy
materials in English and local languages, supports mobile
and stationary libraries, and finances clean water and sanitation projects in communities and villages in the developing world. We seek to promote multicultural literacy, education, and development that will make a long term impact, one book and one water project at a time, while building effective partnerships with local communities. Our book and water projects in communities in India, Tanzania, Haiti, Pakistan, the Philippines and Malaysia serve those who have long experienced poverty, discrimination, and living on the edge of communities with little to minimal infrastructure. Through our work we give children and developing communities hope for the future by nourishing their minds and bodies through books and water. Without the basics of life, what hope will children and young people have for the future?
Our Approach
WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water is a small nonprofit 501(c)3 organization using a grassroots approach to raise funds for new projects on an individual basis. We donate books and literacy materials in English and local languages and fund clean water and sanitation projects in communities and villages in the developing world. We seek to promote multicultural literacy, education, and development that will make a long term impact, one book and one water project at a time, while building effective partnerships with local communities.
Our Story
WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water grew out of PaperTigers.org, an internationally recognized website about books in English for young readers. This website and its blog worked to bridge cultures and open minds, promoting a greater understanding and empathy among young people from different backgrounds, countries, and ethnicities. Over a period of eleven years PaperTigers embraced books with a multicultural focus from around the world, offering a wealth of book-related resources for everyone interested in the world of children's and young adult books.
In 2009 PaperTigers.org added an outreach program called WaterBridge Outreach to its activities with two purposes: to put books in the hands of young readers in the hope that they would inspire and educate lifelong readers, and to fund the development of water projects that would provide the children and communities where books were donated access to clean drinking water and sanitation. WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water is committed to pursuing and developing this program into the future.
Our WaterBridge Outreach Team
Barbara Bundy, PhD, is WaterBridge Outreach's Coordinator of Books + Education. A resident of the Bay Area, Barbara is a retired university professor of comparative literature and administrator. During her 43-year career in higher education she was a faculty member and president of Dominican University of San Rafael, taught on the faculties of the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz, and at the University of San Francisco, where she was the founding executive director of the Center for the Pacific Rim for 21 years.
Peter Coughlan, PhD, was Executive Director of WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water from its inception in 2013 to 2017. From 2002 to 2013 he was executive director of PaperTigers.org from which WaterBridge Outreach arose. A native of London, UK, he has lectured for many years in normative ethical theory and environmental philosophy at the University of London.
Corinne Robson is our Projects Manager and prior to that was the associate editor of PaperTigers.org for seven years. Born and raised in Vancouver, BC she now resides with her family in Anmore, BC. Corinne works part time at the Port Moody Public Library where she always has her eye on new release books that promote multicultural experiences and global understanding.
Gail Tsukiyama is Executive Director of WaterBridge Outreach and an award winning writer. She has been the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award and the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence. A resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, she has taught at San Francisco State University, University of California, Berkeley, and Mills College.
Writers for WaterBridge Outreach is group of writers united in their belief that funding books, clean water, and sanitation projects in areas of need is a vital source in continuing efforts to promote literacy, education and development. Learn more about the writers by clicking here.
The WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water website was designed and developed by Eun-Ha Paek at Milky Elephant.com. Eun-Ha also created the WaterBridge Outreach logo and site diagrams.