To
celebrate the 60th Birth Anniversary of the Fourth King and jointly
contribute to the National Year of Reading, Druk School conducted a campaign to
collect funds to purchase books for a remote school in the Torres Strait
Islands. The school's name is Tagai State College Erub Campus. It is a small
primary school of 49 students in a community of only 376 people. A teacher at
the school posted a plea via Facebook requesting 2 books to be sent by any
person who could afford to do so as all the students in the school had read
every book in the their library.
I
approached the principal requesting that we as a school make it a project to
collect books and send them as a part of our reading year celebrations. Madam
Tshewang Choden Wangdi immediately embraced the idea and suggested we ask for
money not books so that we wouldn’t get inappropriate or double copies. We
established that the brief should be to purchase only books about Bhutan and as
far as possible written by Bhutanese authors.
The response was overwhelming.
The
donations were collected over a period of only two weeks as we wanted to ensure
that the books reached the children in Australia before the end of this
academic year.
Class
X parents initiated the collection at the close of their final meeting for the
year, donating a massive Nu11,000. Students were also incredibly receptive to
the needs of others and willingly donated in small amounts on a daily basis. I
instantly noticed those same children who had come to my desk earlier in the
year when I announced I had brought 30 books from Australia with me. They were
the keenest readers who weren’t aware that this was a secret reading challenge
to see which class would take the initiative and respond. In total students
contributed Nu 6,900 and several classes were proud to say that every single
member made a donation. Such is the power of giving. The teachers and staff
also pledged to donate in varying amounts and as soon as our salaries were paid
that pledge was acknowledged and another Nu 12,170 arrived.
Thus our FUNDS
COLLECTED reached NGULTRUM 30, 070
After
the initial 2 shopping expeditions the question of the postage became pressing.
How much of our funds would have to go towards postage, needed to be established.
The incredibly useful Bhutan Postal Services website indicated that it would be
about Nu12, 000 and I promptly explained this to the principal who like me was
shocked. Never a one to let obstacles stand in her way our Madam Tshewang then
came up with the brilliant idea of seeking the support of the CEO of the Postal
Services. She and I met this charming man and after a brief discussion it was
agreed that the parcel could be sent at a discounted rate. I am indebted to him
for his generosity in sponsoring this project and acknowledging that it was a
worthy cause and a concrete way in which the post office could support reading
year.
Off I went on my third shopping expedition for books, estimating the final weight and spending all that we could on children’s books, which highlighted the beauty of Bhutanese culture and spread the message of happiness. In the end there were some books that had to be doubled up as we really had exhausted all the titles applicable to the student cohort, but I am sure that won’t be a problem. They will certainly have the largest collection of Bhutanese books in Australia, and possibly the Southern Hemisphere, in their library.
I
purchased from every book supplier in Thimphu and was able to get a 10%
discount for schools when I explained the project from many of them so our grand total of 62 books was reached
with the help and assistance of many in the community as well as our own
school. We also included a brief note to the school and some prayer flags for
the students to fly in Torres Strait. We now wait with baited breath to hear
that our books have arrived and that the students of Tagai State College Erub
Campus are enjoying them.
Everyone
enjoyed playing their part in completing a circle of donation of books. I have
to end by saying that the whole idea for this project came to me because of the
books, which were written by ex-BCF teacher Andrea Chisholm and published and
distributed this year through generous donations of people from Australia,
Bhutan and around the world. It was also she who suggested to this teacher to
put out her plea on Facebook. It seems perfect to complete the circle of love
by having Bhutanese donate books to a school in a remote area of her home state
Queensland.
I
am sure that the Fourth King himself, as the inspiration and initiator of many
education projects and an avid supporter of reading, would be pleased with this
outcome.
Thank
you to everyone who made this possible. Tashi Delek.
