freshta karim and Charmaghz library

Having witnessed war and its direct impact on their own childhoods, the founders of  Charmaghz work to provide a supportive and creative environment in which children can grow and become open-minded individuals. The organization provides six mobile libraries in Kabul, Afghanistan and Phonetic Planet recently spoke with Freshta Karim to learn more about how this worthwhile program is coping, during increasingly unstable times in this beautiful country. Freshta started her career at the age of 12, working as a journalist for various radio and television channels.  Since then she has continued to devote her time to the children of Afghanistan. Freshta is a graduate of Panjab University in India, where she studied political science, and she holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Oxford, London.

Where in the world did you spend your childhood, Freshta?

I was born in 1992, during very hard and difficult times here, in Afghanistan. Just weeks after my birth the government changed in a very violent way; a civil war erupted and for a couple of years, my childhood passed like that, until we became refugees in Pakistan. The Taliban took over the country and that remained the case until 2001. In 2002, we went back to Afghanistan. So, the formative years in my life have been lived through a war, as a refugee. I was extremely close to my mother and I remember many things from my childhood, from moments I spent with her and my eldest sister, who has had a significant influence on me. My sister allowed me to be adventurous within the limits that we had and I am forever grateful to her because that skill/outlook has been quite useful in my life, to notice beauty all around us even when times were very difficult.

I don’t know how much attention I used to give to nature when I was a child, but since I have grown up I think that nature has made a particular impression on me. I have a deep, deep love for different kinds of trees and they often amaze me! Whenever I go to visit a city, the first thing I do is examine all their trees. I think about them, and I appreciate their beauty. I hug trees very often! I think they calm me down so much, just realizing that we humans are not the only creatures in the world. Around us, there are so many living creatures. It humbles me, and I love nature.

Is there a special place from your childhood that you remember with extra fondness? If so, what made that place special for you?

I can’t immediately think of any place that has been especially important in my childhood, but I think that in recent years of my life, just remembering the arms of my mother around me,  I feel a unique sense of security. I felt so safe when my mother used to hug me. I think that hug has been very special to me and the way that my mother, during times of war, tried to give me that sense of protection even though people’s attention was understandably quite divided. I found her arms to be a very special place as a child.

Can you describe some of your earliest experiences at school?

I changed schools often because, due to the political life of my country, we had to move from place to place. Until we finally returned to Afghanistan, I remember being quite an outlier in school, never being able to become part of any group but rather making individual friends, which seems to still be a feature of my life. I have many friends but I’m not part of one group exclusively. My childhood was very dramatic, with several challenges including coming from a very difficult, dysfunctional family in so many ways. My family experienced a difficult life, impacted by war and characterized by hardships, abuses and neglect.

In terms of adventure, I think I had such a curious mind that I just couldn’t sit. I still get these waves of curiosity that lead me to so many places. At 11 or 12 years of age, I harbored an interest in TV. In those days, our schools had installed computers with access to the internet. I emailed a local TV station, asking if I could host their children’s TV show. That’s how I started working in TV and in radio, in my country; one of my children’s TV shows, when I was 16, became extremely popular. I was interviewing different politicians and celebrities, who were sharing their expertise and interests with the goal of inspiring children, and since then I have developed a huge interest in working for children. I received a scholarship to study in India, where I studied political science. I went back and worked in my country, traveling especially in the rural areas as far as the borders of Afghanistan. These trips have affected my thinking regarding literacy and education. I have gone to faraway places and I have realized how much people value education, and how much they associate it with the concept of personal dignity. I have heard people tell me of how they feel inferior because they are not literate, and that has affected me greatly; a part of me still lives in those moments.

Please tell us about the establishment of the Charmaghz mobile libraries. What inspired you to become involved in this project?

Many things have inspired me to start the libraries. Perhaps the greatest inspiration came from when I started to read books for my triplet nephews and nieces. They are now seventeen years old, and when they were younger I used to read stories to them at home. They loved reading stories and we would buy them a lot of storybooks but I always had a sense of guilt that my nieces and nephews would get to read a lot and would become more knowledgeable and more imaginative, more creative than other children in our community. They are quite social people, and I would see their friends not having access to books and that guilt is what made me invite them to the reading class. I wanted to give access to books to as many children as possible.

Once I started organizing book clubs every week, I realized the power of children. The children of my community were so powerful and so passionate; our street was not fully constructed so they wrote letters to the mayor and they organized a small protest to build awareness in the community. I took their letters to the mayor and after one year our street was finally reconstructed. During that year I realized that so much power exists in children; we don’t have to wait for them to grow up, to finish college before they can do something for their country. Whatever a person’s age, they can contribute so much to society and, in fact, children are a source of energy. They have huge, open minds! They are ready to contribute, there’s not much hesitation among them. 

When I came to Oxford I had more time to think about it and to figure out what should be at the core of these libraries. I realized that critical thinking has not been encouraged enough in my country, and so we started with libraries with the goal of promoting critical thinking in children.

In 2018, on February 14 (Valentine’s day) we launched our first project. We turned a public bus into a mobile library. Now we have six libraries! We try to build trust among the community and so, our expansion has been gradual. Over the years we realized that working in a city where explosions occur regularly is extremely draining. Nonetheless, the number of children who access the libraries is growing and the impact we are seeing on children is growing. With the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, the question became so serious that for two months we didn’t have the permission to work. The situation has become extremely difficult, from finances to restrictions etc.. But, as soon as I stepped out of my home, thinking about the opportunities that are lost now due to the new conditions, I became more determined than ever before that we should not merely continue but also expand. I need to take a library to each village, and we shall not stop this mission until we have libraries for every child in Afghanistan. We want them to have a space to think, to grow, to be connected to the world through books and to change their own circumstances. It will be very time-consuming and a very painful process but that’s how it is. We must rise.

The mobile libraries play an important role in connecting many children to the world beyond their immediate home. Can you describe a typical day in the van, and the communities served by the libraries?

The buses cover Kabul city right now because the city has almost no library resources for children. There were one or two, but they are no longer functioning. The buses cover different corners of Kabul; the children are aware of the schedule and look forward to when the bus comes to their area. We make weekly visits along a predetermined route and our focus is on quality rather than quantity. Each month we have around eight thousand visits , which is huge for just six libraries! This is winter time so schools are closed and the libraries seem to be their most popular form of entertainment. We have some children who call us and complain if we are running late, even if we are just five minutes behind schedule! They remind us that it is important to come on time since our visits are limited to two hours in each community we visit..

Once inside the library bus, the children can read books, they can listen to some books being read aloud to them by the librarian, they can experience peer-to-peer book-reading. They read poetry to each other. They also play chess, which is a nice way for them to improve their thinking skills. We have many mental health activities and literacy games because even though many of the children who visit us are able to attend school, most of the girls cannot. The quality of the education is very low, class numbers are large (sometimes up to 45 children in a classroom)  and the children often have reading fluency problems or comprehension problems. We provide games for them to improve their vocabulary, as well as their overall literacy skills.

In a country where children are experiencing childhood trauma because of war or of the abusive nature of many households, we believe that some mental health support is important. Books are not a priority for families at the moment. Of course, their priority should be food. There is a very stressful situation in the country right now. Our libraries are a little safe space where the children can take some moments of rest from life and enjoy a sense of community with other children.

What are your future dreams for this inspirational library, Freshta?

My future dream for this project is that every child in my country could have access to these libraries. We know how important it is for the children who visit us. Our project has a huge potential for expansion, if we can find the support we need.

Currently our biggest problem relates to funding because many of our supporters were Afghan businesses but many of these businesses have collapsed due to the recent political situation. We now have an online fundraising initiative, which reaches a global audience. You can find out more at the following link: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/support-childrens-education-in-afghanistan/

We are so appreciative to Freshta for taking the time to provide us with detailed insight into aspects of childhood in Afghanistan today, and how her own childhood helped to motivate her to develop an educational  program that has the potential to bring positive change into so many young lives. More information on Charmaghz can be found at https://charmaghz.org/ and on Instagram @charmaghz.library        

All images used here are from the Charmaghz Instagram account.