I put away Christmas today and thought for a moment about keeping a pine cone or an ornament out just to remind me of the season. Have you ever consider doing this, keeping out a part of Christmas so that you can remember the joy, the sweetness and the gentleness we manage to find during Christmas? Well, one way to hang on to the kindness is by contributing to the Book Wish Foundation’s post holiday Books for Darfur Refugees Campaign. It’s simple: for every book you received for Christmas, you’re asked to donate $1 so that books can be purchased for the refugees.
I’ve received this information from the organizers (btw, this organization is run on 100% volunteer efforts with 100% of donations used to purchase books):
The good news story here is the inspiration of Darfuris who self-organized their own English classes in refugee camps. For example, they view learning English as their “road to freedom.” Since sending two shipments of specifically requested ESL books to the camps in May 2008, the numbers of refugees learning English has jumped from 400 to 800 (as of July 2008) and now numbers more than 1,100! We are partnering with the British NGO, CORD, that runs education programs for UNHCR and UNICEF in the Bredjing, Treguine, and Gaga camps (60,000 refugees, about 20,000 students, about 1/2 are girls). Our website (www.bookwish.org) shows inspiring photos of the refugees smiling and holding up the ESL books we sent them.
So, I’m leaving this bit of Christmas out there so that we can give and in doing so, hang on to the joy of the season.
Cotton Quilts Edi 