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 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 tripled from 10,000 in 2007 to over 30,000 in 2008.

In just three years ICE has distributed over 21,000 books to over thirty 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 Lion who Saw Himself in the Water and The Farmer’s Wife and next year we hope to add The Boy without a Name, all by contemporary Afghan author Idries Shah.

In 2009 ICE has set a goal to provide enough books to fill our current partners’ needs and continue to expand our support for programs across Canada.

Girl Guides of Canada with disadvantaged kids in Mexico reading The Lion Who Saw Himself in the Water donated through ICE. Read More...

“It is my great pleasure, then, to endorse ICE’s very important efforts and to lend my support in the sharing of these wonderful books across Canada and around the world.” Read More...
Mary Rankin
Canadian Program Manager
World Literacy of Canada

“The donation of The Lion Who Saw Himself in the Water was very well received...The response has been tremendous.” Read More...
Madeleine Buhlau
Special Projects Coordinator
Oakville Parent-Child Centre

“We give out a variety of childrens’ books as often as we can, since we agree with the philosophy of ICE that having books at home encourages reading by children and to them.” Read More...
Leona Gadsby
Executive Director
Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy

“This is such an excellent children's book [The Lion Who Saw Himself in the Water].  It gives us great pleasure to distribute it.” Read More...
David Page
Community Coordinator
Frontier College