Winter Fundraising for Charmaghz

Dear friends of Charmaghz, 

We were humbled by your contribution to our Winter Fundraising aimed at raising money to renovate our mobile libraries. Your generosity well surpassed our expectation with the final donated amount standing at $8671 while the target was $5000. Thank you very much. 

Your generous support not only enabled us to do better work, it also inspires us to push further boundaries. Many had left touching personal notes along their donations, explaining why they contributed, stories that are now part of our story. One generous woman, for instance, had made a considerable donation as a birthday gift to her retired husband who loved to spread the joy of reading. 

With your contributions, we did renovate all three of our buses, as we had planned. In particular, we 

1. Added more chairs and sofas so children would be more comfortable during their visit to our libraries
2. Installed microphones and sound-systems in our libraries so children would read books and stories to their peers—something that could improve not only their reading skills but also their self-confidence
3. Fixed air-conditioners run with solar energy so the libraries would be usable in the summer heat of Kabul and its winter cold
4. Painted the buses with fresh colors, to make them more attractive to children and the urban environment in which they operate.
5. Added more books to our library collections. 

We plan to use the $3000 which is left unspent for a pilot project, as we raise more funds, to start a mini library on a small truck in very unprivileged areas currently inaccessible to our large buses.  If successful, we would scale up the initiative in order to deliver services to children in some of the most disenfranchised communities.

 While the lockdown measures due to the coronavirus pandemic have prevented us to discharge our renovated mobile libraries on Kabul streets, we continue working for and with children through online platforms.

1. Online Storytelling: our director and a 9-years old child read stories to children on a weekly basis to help them with listening and vocabulary, improve their phonological awareness and ease the pressuring impacts of the quarantine. Videos are watched, on average, 5000 times each.
2. Online panel discussions: we have tried to take advantage of the little opportunities that lockdown presents. In so doing, we organized an online live discussion to explore the mental and psychological effects of the lockdown on children (with 7000 views).
3. Online library: through our Facebook page, we share the PDF copies of children books from various sources and encourage parents to read them to their children as a remedy to the buses being inaccessible to them. 

 We hope the situation returns to normal soon so our buses can re-start operating after their much-needed renovation. We once again thank you for our generous support and wish you good health and success.

Links:

• Link to Our Online Storytelling by our 9 Years Old Storyteller