The Teaching-Stories published by Hoopoe Books are part of Afghanistan’s rich oral tradition, told there by campfire and candlelight for more than 1,000 years. Selected and written especially for children by the Afghan author and savant, Idries Shah, these universal tales have been commended by Western educators for their ability to foster thinking skills and perception.

Now the ISHK Hoopoe Books for Afghanistan program will ensure that these traditional tales return home in book form as part of an effort to improve Afghan literacy rates. We provide bilingual Dari-Pashto, and English-only paperbacks, audio readings of them, and classroom Teacher Guides, to schools, orphanages and libraries throughout Afghanistan.

Dari-Pashto Editions

“The help of your organization is greatly appreciated. These books are so good for young school children. The stories are fantastic! They are typical Afghan cultural stories that were not written but were told to kids by their parents and grandparents at night times when they got together. Afghanistan has been at war for the past 31 years, so the younger generations think that war has always been there. But the truth is Afghanistan has a very rich culture. These stories have very meaningful contents and positive endings that bring beauty and an idea of a positive culture to the minds of young readers. As adults we have the responsibility to remind our children of our past and teach them through living examples that Afghanistan had a proud history. So by distributing these kinds of books to children in schools and community centers we will help them to appreciate their past and once again employ the values the stories contain in their daily life and in their family’s life.”
Dr. Mohammad Khan Kharoti, Green Village Schools, Helmand Province

In Afghanistan, there is a literacy rate of only 28% for Afghans over 15 years old. Afghanistan has the highest proportion of school-age (ages 7-12) children in the world yet almost half (5 million) of them have no access to education. Schools have very limited
resources and books are rare.

Give a young girl a book of her own
and she will find someone
to help her read it.

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SUPPORT OUR TROOPS IN THEIR EFFORTS TO HELP LITERACY

Over the last two years a number of PRTs have asked us for books as soon as we are able to provide them, most recently:

We shipped 23,000 Hoopoe books to Paktika Province. Cpt Mike Butler and SPC Jillian Hoiseth are doing an extraordinary distribution job and we are very pleased to be able to support their efforts to help children, by providing them with these books. The following is an extract from Cpt Butler's recent email:

Finally, the girls are permitted to approach and receive their books

If you would like to support this effort, or know someone deployed in Afghanistan who might wish to do so, please email us at: hoopoebooks@aol.com

For more about our Afghan Publishing Program and Literacy in Afghanistan CLICK HERE.

Hoopoe books help children develop an understanding
of themselves and the world around them.

From thinking children come thinking adults.