Creating the Human Library:Fighting taboos & stigma through dialogue | Ronni Abergel | TEDxBucharest

Imagine a safe space where we could all sit together and talk openly about taboos and stigma! A place where a conversation with a refugee, a transgender, a bipolar person or someone living with an eating disorder is equally possible, open and informative.

Ronni Abergel has been developing this space for 17 years with his concept of Human Library™, a movement designed to build a positive framework for conversations , where real people are on loan to readers, a place where difficult questions are expected, appreciated and answered.

Would you let somebody "borrow" you? We all have our stories that are relevant to someone. Feel free to share a moment with a complete stranger - your story may be of great need to somebody.

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Ronni Abergel, born and raised in Denmark, is the creator of the Human Library™ as well as a journalist and social change activist working full time at the Human Library Organization, which he founded. He is also a co-founder of the Danish Stop The Violence Organisation | http://humanlibrary.org

Ronni Abergel is the founder of The Human Library. This project is meant to help implement initiatives from Stop the Violence Movement, an NGO that he co-founded to fight violence among young people guided by the belief that “If we could make people sit down with a group attached to a certain stigma they don’t like or even know about for that matter, we could diminish violence”. Since 2000, when the initiative was launched, The Human Library has been continuously growing and expanding worldwide, as a platform of peer to peer discussions to fight the prejudice and violence in society.

Ronni Abergel was born and raised in Denmark, he is a journalist and social change activist. The Human Library Organization has an uncommon concept where instead of books, real people with real stories are on loan to readers. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx