From Readers in Canada to Readers in Afghanistan: The Story of Dara Village Library
From Readers in Canada to Readers in Afghanistan:
The Story of the Dara Village Library
By Lauryn Oates
The story of Dara Library is one example of a project that exists thanks to the support from royalties donated by Canadian award-winning author, Deborah Ellis. In March 2001, Groundwood Books published three inspiring novels by Deboral Ellis for youth adults called: The Breadwinner, Parvana’s Journey and Mud City. These stories have helped thousands of Canadian youth and adults find inspiration and humanity through the adventures of young Parvana in her homeland, Afghanistan. And now they have also helped nurture readers in rural Afghanistan, giving the gift of literacy and books. This gift has truly changed lives and will continue to positively influence life in Dara Village for generations to come.
Nestled in a green valley in eastern Afghanistan, sits a cluster of villages that take advantage of the shade and breeze offered by the surrounding mountains. The area is unusually lush for Afghanistan, and a rich array of fruits, nuts, herbs and vegetables grow there, from apricots and almonds to wild sage and green apples. It is a beautiful place, and the people who live there have long harbored a dream. They want a school for girls.
After much lobbying, the government finally built a boy’s high school for their area. The villagers felt it would take another lifetime before they would ever win a girls’ high school. In the meantime, they had a 0% literacy rate among the girls and women in their villages. They knew this was crippling not only to the women and their families, but to the entire community.
When two women from Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WAfghan) ended up in the area for a picnic with an Afghan friend who hailed from the valley, they found themselves in an impromptu brainstorming session with the village elders. Standing in a circle under the shade of a mulberry orchard as the plump berries fell all around and children climbed in the trees, the issue of the low literacy rates came up. Discussing the problem, an alternative to a high school was proposed: a community library. One man, who owned some land and had just built a new house there, offered the first floor of his home for the library. CW4WAfghan offered to provide funds to buy the books and to support a salary for a literacy teacher.
Two months later, the library of Dara (which means ‘valley’ in Dari) Village opened. Shelves were up, lined with books. A women’s organization based in the capital which runs small libraries for girls was invited to come to Dara and train a local woman in basic librarianship. A woman from a nearby village was recruited to be a literacy teacher and 17 girls and women enrolled in the valley’s first ever literacy class for women and girls. The number of students grew, until it wasn’t long before the village saw a sharp rise in its literacy rates. Impressed, the men of Dara soon came to CW4WAfghan with a proposal: they wanted their own literacy class.
Shortly thereafter, a men’s literacy class was launched in the boys’ high school in the evenings. Meanwhile, on any given day, over 100 books are usually signed out of the library, in an area where the entire surrounding population barely exceeds 1,000 people. A group of mullahs is often found reading there, and they have been known to praise the library in their Friday sermons at the local mosque, encouraging people to use the library.
Access to books and literacy learning is, and will continue to have a profound impact on all aspects of life in Dara Village. Women who are literate can open small businesses, apply for micro-credit loans, and read about ways to improve livestock and agricultural practices. They can teach others how to read, learn about good nutrition, healthcare and child-rearing practices. When adult women are literate, their daughters tend to go to school, halting the cycle of girls’ illiteracy, early marriage and lack of power. Literate women have more power within their households and communities. And as we have already seen in Dara, literate women can inspire men to be literate too!
