| With paper a precious resource, a
teacher in Afghanistan writes a short note to thank Josanna
Smith, founder of WWW United, for the learning boards™
sent to her classroom in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Hello to you. Thanks for your
good gifts. These gifts are very important because we need
more learning during the Taliban we couldn’t go to school
and
learn any thing. Today we are very
happy to go and join in the class to get
benefit of science.
With best regards,
Afghans’s students
Over the past nine months, GSSJC and WWW United, Inc. have
had a partnership in working on more than 4,000 learning boards,
many complete with sock erasers and chalk.
Recently, Josanna Smith, with help from the US government,
was allowed to travel to Afghanistan and personally deliver
learning boards. What started as a dream of hers several years
ago, became what she called “the most grueling, most
challenging” trip but “well worth it.” She
went on to |
describe her visit to the world of the Taliban
as, “a place where there is a great thirst for knowledge
and school; where little children sit on floors with no windows
and walls missing often no roofs, with nothing to write with
but beans.”
Josanna continues, “They take in 4,500 students a day
at some schools, in an area where we might teach 200 a day
all crowded shoulder to shoulder next to one another cross
legged on the floor. The teacher has a makeshift chalkboard
on the wall, if there is a wall or chalk. Dark little rooms
usually, I never saw any electricity. Paper very rare. They
teach in bombed out buildings with no roofs, in old, dirt-floor
mosques, in tents when they can get them (of which they are
very proud), in “mentor’s” homes, in mud
huts in the mountains, wherever they can find a place.”
How can your troop help?
The Council Learning Board Service Project continues for the
2004-05 membership year. To paint learning boards, refer to
the instructions on this month of |
the Council Information Network (CIN) found at www.gssjc.org.
Troops can make boards, collect white socks, or white chalk.
Even if you have already made boards, you now have the chance
to write letters to the children of Afghanistan. WWW United,
Inc. invites girls to write an upbeat, general short note
with creative artwork to be shipped overseas with the boards.
Girls just handwrite short, large block print letters to someone
in school overseas, filled with our message of worldwide friendship.
Please list your first name only. Mail your letters to the
Girl Scout office, Melinda Gaskill, 3110 Southwest Freeway,
Houston TX 77098. |