Books for Afghan Refugees

We are asking for your help to expand our program to provide essential books to Afghan refugee children and teens housed on military bases throughout the United States. The program responds to the most urgent educational needs of these children – to learn English.

Thousands of Afghan children and teenagers have been displaced from their ancestral homes following the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August of 2021. Many have arrived with little more than the clothes on their back and have witnessed unspeakable suffering, loss and trauma. In some cases, families have been separated and children are here without their siblings or even without their parents.

In spite of all this, they are eager to build a new life. Most of these young Afghans have little to no English comprehension. A quick path to English literacy provides them a foundation for a fresh start and to a fulfilling and successful life in a new country.

Teen Readers Society (TRS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit working to reverse declining reading rates among teenagers by getting books into the hands of vulnerable youth who lack adequate access to reading or have suffered extraordinary hardship. In partnership with Penguin Random House, Better World Books, Team Rubicon and USAID, we are currently providing an initial donation of 2,000 books to a group of approximately 1,500 Afghan asylum seekers between the ages of 4-74 currently housed at the Doña Ana Village at Fort Bliss, NM. The majority of the English learning students are children and teens.

This group of refugees are being housed by the federal government because they have nowhere else to go. They lack the access and privileges those in more fortunate positions were afforded by the charitable corporate housing efforts of other organizations. The impact this donation provides will benefit the least fortunate and most vulnerable population of Afghan asylum seekers. It is critical that these people are not forgotten.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

While the current program is establishing a framework for supplying books to a small group of refugee children, we need to do more.

Our goal is to support all Afghan villages to include more asylum seekers living at other military bases throughout the United States. There are currently a total of eight military installations around the country with 53,000 Afghan evacuees, almost half of them 18 or under.

With your help to raise $15,000, we can work to identify the basic educational needs of all of the most vulnerable children and teens from Afghanistan and supply them with English language books and other materials to jumpstart their education. In addition to serving immediate educational needs, we know that books are also highly beneficial for countering the effects of anxiety, stress and trauma. In short, your donation will help us make the lives of these children better and will serve as a reminder of the anonymous friends rooting for them.

Teen Readers Society would like to thank you for taking the time to read about our program.

Please remember that no amount is too small and share our story and GoFundMe page on your social media page (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok) to help us reach our goal regardless of whether or not you are able to contribute monetarily. Thank you!

You can learn more about this program and our organization at https://teenreaderssociety.org/books-for-afghan-refugees/