Canadian Non-Profit Donates Thousands of Traditional Children's Tales to Kids in Afghanistan

CALGARY (January 14, 2011) – The Institute for Cross-Cultural Exchange (ICE) has donated 5,500 Dari-Pashto language storybooks to children in schools and orphanages in Afghanistan. This first shipment of books, part of ICE’s Share Literacy Afghanistan program, will help in the ongoing battle against illiteracy in the war-torn Central Asian country.

The Khatiz Organization for Rehabilitation, a local Afghan NGO, has partnered with ICE to distribute the books to three learning centers in Kabul and Helmand provinces.

“These books are so good for the young children,” says Dr. Mohammad Khan Kharoti, of Green Village Schools in Helmand Province. “They are typical Afghan cultural stories that were not written but were told to kids by their parents and grandparents at night times when they got together.”

In most cases, the books will be the first that the children have ever seen or owned. Afghanistan has the highest proportion of school-aged children in the world, yet 45% of them do not attend school. And only 28% of Afghans over the age of 15 are literate.

The stories are published by Hoopoe and are based upon traditional stories from Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Middle East. Told by campfire and candlelight for many centuries, and known by Western psychologists as “Teaching Stories”, these tales address universal themes such as overcoming difficulties, building self-esteem, negotiation and finding peaceful solutions to conflicts. Experts say that thought patterns developed through familiarity with these tales are incompatible with extremism and, in fact, result in a flexibility of mind that will not coexist with extremist beliefs.

The late Afghan author, Idries Shah, collected these stories over a period of decades and introduced them to a Western audience in the English language. Since many of the stories originate in Afghanistan, the ICE donation also constitutes a repatriation of indigenous tales back to their country of origin. They are part of a cultural legacy that is now under threat of disappearing due to continued poverty, conflict and underdevelopment in Afghanistan.

The Hoopoe titles have become so popular that there has been upsurge in demand from other schools, libraries and orphanages in Afghanistan for the books.

ICE (www.iceeducation.org) is an all-volunteer Canadian charity that addresses family literacy and promotes understanding between cultures. In addition to the 5,500 Dari-Pashto books sent to Afghanistan, ICE has so far donated over 46,000 Hoopoe books Canada-wide.

For more information about the book donation and Share Literacy Afghanistan, please contact Andrew Boden (tel. 604-421-3743), andboden@gmail.com. For information about ICE or Hoopoe Books, please contact: David Cottle (403-313-2796), director@iceeducation.org.