Breaking Bread

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

How Does Breaking Bread Work?
A basic plan is for a host to invite nine guests to join together for an enjoyable evening, each donating $75. You may want to include more guests and leave the donation amount up to the guest. Explain that the goal of each dinner or community event is to raise $750.

How will the money you raise be used?
$750 will purchase a 200 book mini-library for a school or village OR pay a teacher's salary for six months.

$1,500 will purchase a 500-book mini library for a school or village OR pay a teacher's salary for one year.

At the time of launching this initiative in June 2002, $750 was the average annual salary for an Afghan teacher. Thankfully the situation is gradually improving and teacher's salaries were doubled in October 2009, so this amount of $750 will now pay the salary of a teacher for at least six months. Breaking Bread donations are also used towards supporting urgently needed educational resources such as mini-libraries for schools and communities.

Results So Far
Since this initiative was launched, over 950 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! To download a pamphlet explaining the Breaking Bread initiative 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 this 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/afghanistan.asp or download a copy here.

More on Where The Money Goes
Please note, this Breaking Bread fundraising initiative is not managed as a specific teacher sponsorship program 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.

To best meet the needs of our beneficiaries, our funding must 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. Over the last decade, 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