Ronni Abergel

The Human Library

Meet Ronni Abergel, a 48 year old Danish human rights activist and journalist who created the ‘Human Library,’ a global movement that encourages people to “un-judge each other” by allowing them to “borrow” a human from a marginalised background and listen to their story.

Ronni was born and raised in Denmark. At 19 years old, one of his close friends was stabbed in a nightclub in Copenhagen, prompting Ronni to initiate “Stop the Violence”, a series of concerts and workshops to help youth to resolve conflicts peacefully and find common ground.

In 2000, the organizers of Roskilde, the largest music festival in Northern Europe, invited Ronni to create a series of interactive encounters. The opportunity sparked an idea of creating a safe space where stereotypes could be challenged through conversation. Because libraries are one of the few neutral places where everyone is welcome, Ronni designed a human library where users could loan out stigmatized or unconventional people to ask them questions and challenge assumptions.

The first 'library' event ran for four days straight, resulting in thousands of unlikely pairings and powerful conversations: a feminist and a Muslim woman, a transgender man and a conservative Christian.

Over the past 21 years, Ronni’s idea has become an international bestseller. The Human Library is active in 80 countries and the hands-on learning program is embedded in festivals, high schools and as part of medical training in universities. When in-person events abruptly stopped in 2020, the library went virtual and without geographic restrictions, readership doubled—the plumber from Kenya can now “borrow” the artist from Bangladesh.

Ronni’s library rules are simple: If you treat the books respectfully and return them on time, in the same shape you borrowed them, “they will answer any question you have the courage to ask.” The “books” are trained to set safe boundaries while volunteers around the globe monitor the conversations and a psychologist is always on call.

Ronni is now a book himself. After his 37-year-old wife died unexpectedly, leaving him with two small children, he noticed that people didn’t know what to say to him. He now hopes to break some of the stigma around grief for the people who borrow him.

“My vision is that one day we don’t need the library anymore because we have the courage again to talk to the people around us. But in our daily grind, we don’t have the time and opportunity.”