Marloes Robijn (1985) from the Netherlands has a background in Scandinavian studies, (Children’s) Literature and Clinical Linguistics. In 2016, she moved to Reykjavík, where she worked at the Nordic House and now works as one of the project managers for Mýrin. She has been involved in organizing activities for refugee children and families as a volunteer for the Red Cross and in 2017, she started the reading project Lestrarvinir.
Lestrarvinir is based on the Dutch project VoorleesExpress that connects volunteers to families with low literacy. The volunteers read books to the children to stimulate language development, pre-literacy skills and the joy of reading books. The volunteer visits the family weekly for a period of 20 weeks, familiarising them with the ritual of reading aloud. They visit the library together, read books and the volunteer gives the parents the tools they need to take an active role in their children’s language and literacy development. The project is aimed at children from 2 to 8 years old who can benefit from help with (second) language development.

Marloes collaborated with Reykjavík City Library and Miðja máls og læsis to start Lestrarvinir in Reykjavík. 14 families and volunteers participated in the pilot project that started in autumn 2017 and has shown great interest among parents, teachers and  volunteers. The project continues this autumn.
Marloes is one of the speakers at the conference on 12 October.