During the GMB workshop, an action idea was selected by people of at a school in Qarabagh district to build a room, provide equipment, and prepare books for a library. Based on the mentioned action idea, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) built, equipped, and provided study and learning books for the library at the school under the EEQAP project in 2021.
The EEQAP project provided 640 different books to the library and the team has encouraged people with connections to the school to donate books to the school.
The teachers, students, and other people at the school were so happy and they have made a committee to donate books to the library. After the handover of the library to the school administration, the greater community has donated about 800 different books to the school library.
A resident of a neighboring village in Qarabagh district who works in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock has donated about 400 different books to the school library. He has even included some important books from surrounding countries.
Another person donated 42 copies of different books to the school library. The process of book donations is continuing and we believe we will have a great library where we will have many different types of books and teachers, students and other people will use the library.
The students are very interested and they are studying the books in the library as well as students getting books from the library and reading them at their homes.
The school administration has prepared a plan for using the library where each classroom has a specific day for the usage of the library, in addition to allowing students to take books and bring them back to the library every day from 08:00 AM to 04:00 PM 6 days a week.
Ms. Zinat, daughter of Mr. Ali is a student in 3rd grade, has taken 5 different books from the library and studied them at home, all books were so important and interesting to her. She also reads books in the library during her free time.
While we were visiting she came to the library to return the book she was studying and to get a new book for reading. She told friends and family members about the book she just read and the important lesson of the story was to “speak truly every time and everywhere”. Ms. Zinat and other children know the profit of reading and studying and they are so happy to have access to different books.
The head teacher of the school, appreciated the EEQAP project activities and he added that the EEQAP project has increased awareness and importance of education and school amongst those in the community. Community members now know how they can help the school and students and they understand how to prepare plans and implement the strategies suggested by people.
The head teacher has requested SCA and Washington University to design and implement other important projects such as the EEQAP project for our schools.
Written by Asadullah Samim
Edited by Mara McKown