Breaking Bread

Breaking Bread for Women in Afghanistan is a volunteer fundraising project to support education for Afghan women and girls by holding pot luck dinners across Canada.

How does this work? A basic plan is for a host to invite nine guests to join together for an enjoyable evening, each donating $75. The goal of each dinner or community event is to raise $750 CDN, the approximate cost of one teacher's salary for a year in Afghanistan (based on estimates at the time of launching this initiative in June 2002).

Since this initiative was launched, over 700 dinners and other events have been held all across the country, which involve the sharing of food and giving of donations of all amounts. Thank you Canada!

Your donations will provide funding for teachers' salaries, teacher training, libraries and librarians as well as urgently needed educational resources for schools, teachers and students.

To download a pamphlet explaining the Breaking Bread project please click HERE.

Read the inspiring stories of the young girls at the Shuhada school and the some of the teachers funded by Breaking Bread. This article was written by award-winning journalist and author Sally Armstrong after her visit to the community school in Afghanistan in 2006. Click on the link to Professionally Speaking, the publication of the Ontario College of Teachers at http://www.oct.ca/publications/professionally_speaking/december_2006/afg... or download a copy here.

Please note, this Breaking Bread fundraising initiative is not managed as a specific teacher sponsorship programme as this would rely heavily on administrative time and resources from both our volunteers here in Canada, and our Afghan partners. We want your donations spent not on administrative expenses, but spent on education. Funds raised under Breaking Bread are pooled together and issued as part of our funding for teachers' salaries and other education support needed at the schools, libraries and towards literacy and other classes funded by our organization in partnership with non-profit grassroots groups in Afghanistan.

As mentioned above, beginning in 2009, the breaking bread funds will not only support teachers' salaries but they will also be used for salaries for librarians, teacher training and a portion for village library books and other educational resources for teachers and students. To better meet the needs of our beneficiaries, our funding must also contribute to quality education for teachers and students including subject specific training, methodology to broaden teaching strategies, and access to equipment, library books, training materials and other educational resources. This is a step forward for education in Afghanistan: we have gone from making sure teachers received at least a minimum salary to now giving them the tools to be better teachers.  Your donations are wisely invested in providing access to and improvement in the quality of education for Afghan women and girls. See HOW WE HELP for full details on our projects in Afghanistan.

For further information, please call 403 244-5625 or email BreakingBread@CW4WAfghan.ca