Education Afghanistan Project #56342

Support Children's Literacy in Afghanistan

by Charmaghz Cultural Services Organization

Project Report | May 8, 2023
An Update from Charmaghz's Literacy Project

By Freshta Karim | Founder

Hamid, with his favorite book

Dear Friends of Charmaghz,

We are so grateful for your ongoing support of our literacy project in Afghanistan. Your donations make it possible for us to help marginalized children in Kabul learn to read, and develop a love of books.

Updates From Our Libraries

Over the past few months our team has been hard at work upgrading our libraries to support an even more impactful literacy program. We have been redecorating and refurnishing the libraries to ensure we are offering children the best possible learning environment.

In addition, Charmaghz is partnering with Boum-e-Dana, an Afghan children's book publisher, to provide books for our literacy program that feature Afghan storytellers and illustrators. Boum-e-Dana and Charmaghz share a belief that all children should see themselves in the books they read, and that such books contribute to a culture of reading and storytelling in Afghanistan.

Opening Three New Education Centers to Support Girls’ Literacy

We are thrilled to announce that in the coming months, in partnership with Malala Fund, Charmaghz is opening three new education centers, which will support 500 young girls to learn to read and do basic math. We are in the process of developing a new, tailored literacy and numeracy curriculum for this program, hiring teachers, and setting up the education centers. It is a busy time at Charmaghz, but we are so excited for the opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of these young girls.

World Literacy Summit

Charmaghz’s Founder and Director, Freshta Karim, presented at the World Literacy Summit in Oxford, UK, in April 2023. Her talk focused on the challenges that Charmaghz has encountered under the Taliban government, and our determination to continue supporting children’s literacy in Afghanistan. The Summit was a productive opportunity to meet other literacy-focused organizations from around the world, and to share Charmaghz’s story.

Meet Our Student: Hamid

11 year old Hamid* is a regular visitor to Charmaghz’s libraries. He is clever and has a deep passion to learn. Hamid starts to look for new books to read as soon as he enters the library and has read most of the books in the library. He enjoys playing cricket, and when he grows up he wants to write a book. In the attached picture, Hamid is holding his favorite book, The Wisdom of Ahmad Shaah Baba written by Idriss Shah.

*Name has been changed

Thank You!

Charmaghz is so grateful for your ongoing support - your donations help children learn to read every day in our libraries. We have an ambitious plan for 2023 to help even more children become lifelong readers, and every dollar counts. Please share Charmaghz’s story with friends and family, and encourage them to donate!

Freshta presenting at the World Literacy Summit

Library renovations

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Jan 5, 2023
Update from Charmaghz

By Freshta Karim | Founder, Charmaghz

Dear Friends of Charmaghz,

Thank you for continuing to support Charmaghz, we are truly grateful to our community of donors who have made our mission a possibility. This past year our organisation has managed to achieve major milestones and reach a record number of children in Kabul.

How did we impact children’s lives?

In 2022 we had more than 357,000 child visitors to our mobile libraries, 53% of these by girls. Being a women-led and woman-majority organization, this was something that was truly important to us. Moreover, we have also successfully provided educational services to 51 public schools in Kabul through our portable box libraries. Charmaghz also opened a new van library in Dasht-e-Barchi, a neighbourhood consisting of predominantly ethnically marginalized Hazaras. This year our librarians focused on building foundational literacy and numeracy skills among children, which we believe is a necessary first step towards empowering children to take agency of their own lives.

How we spent your donations

Donations from this GlobalGiving project, including the $6500 we raised on Giving Tuesday, were used to support the ongoing operation of our 16 mobile libraries, which support children’s literacy, numeracy, and psychosocial health six days a week. The funds were used to pay the rent of five buses, purchase fuel, and install heaters. Donations were also used to pay the salaries of our 36 librarians, and five bus drivers. Lastly, your support enabled us to add more than 400 books in Dari and Pashto to our libraries, as well as educational and art-based games.

Our challenges:

On December 24th, the Taliban banned Afghan women from working in local and international NGOs in Afghanistan. This announcement came just three days after the Taliban prohibited Afghan women from attending university. Restricting women’s participation in civil society has a tragic effect on their future, on their mental health and well-being, and concretely limits the ability of organizations like Charmaghz to serve the most marginalized girls and boys. We take immense pride in being a woman-founded and women-majority organization: over 75% of our staff are female. We started with a dream to ensure a better future for the children of Afghanistan–one full of books, education, love, and compassion. Every day, the librarians in our mobile libraries go above and beyond to make this dream a reality. The work we do would not be possible without our female colleagues.

This ban is in opposition to everything Charmaghz stands for, and in protest, our activities in Afghanistan are currently suspended. We will not work unless our female colleagues are allowed to work. We are continuing to assess the situation and will see how the context evolves in the coming weeks and months. Our female staff remain on our payroll and are working from home.

We shall continue:

While our activities are on pause, our team is using this time to reflect, care for our collective well-being, invest in staff development, and focus on tasks that will strengthen Charmaghz’s systems and operations in both the short and long term. In these troubling times, we are counting on your support and love for our organization and its staff.

Charmaghz as an organization has faced many crises and we remain hopeful that this time as well we will be able to emerge stronger, for we are committed to ensuring a loving and peaceful future for the children of Afghanistan.

Warmest Regards,

Freshta Karim

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