I’ve started this website to have all the information about (the discovery of) Hanny’s Voorwerp organised in one place. I’ve used the ‘blog’ part, not only to publish stories about how I’m promoting science across the world, but to vent unrelated interesting or funny things happening around me. And the best part is, I get to raise attention for things like the next good cause too…
Did you hear about Raccoon and Otter finding a box? It’s a shoebox and both Raccoon and Otter decide they’re the new owner of this very cool box. Although they are good friends, they get into a heavy argument about who gets to keep it. Luckily, it’s a Magic Box, who interferes and tells the two to look at what they already do have. This leads to another fight, about who is the richest. The Box comes to the rescue again by challenging them to give their stuff away. After all, the one with the most things, can miss the most. A big dove comes to pick up the now full shoe box and takes it to animals in other forests, who didn’t have as much.
This is not a book review column, though I can tell you it is a great book. I came across it a few years ago, when I was still a trainee teacher. Yes, it sounds cliché, but don’t you love those morals behind Disney movies too?! I ended up using it in my drama class because of the story behind it and that same story turns out to be a true one: The book supports ‘Operation Shoe Box’ from the ‘Edukans’ charity (‘edu’ from ‘education’, ‘kans’ meaning ‘chance’). With this project they took real shoe boxes, filled with toys and other stuff from Dutch children to children in Malawi. I love this win-win situation; obviously ‘our’ kids learn a lot from this.
(Picture: Stichting Edukans).
Recently I came across the project again, as I stumbled on the Twitter page of Antonie Kamerling, a brilliant actor and singer. He supports the new project from Edukans, which can be translated as: The Netherlands shares. I know I have a lot of Dutch and foreign readers, but I think you can participate from another country too. In any case, have a look at their website, where you can buy books, paper, crayons, or even a chalk board for schools in Malawi. Primary education is free in this country, but since most schools don’t have (enough) materials, a lot of parents keep their kids home anyway.
And I needn’t stress the importance of education of course. As a teacher myself, I can’t imagine what it is like teaching 80 kids at a time. (We complain over 30!) And have all of them sharing one book for instance. (They complain if they have to share with two or three!) You don’t have to give away everything you own, like Raccoon and Otter, every little bit helps…
So I just bought a few books to make life easier for my colleague in Malawi.
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Note that the first picture is a scan I’ve made of the book I own. The second picture is from ‘Stichting Edukans’. I’m assuming they don’t mind me using it, as they state you are allowed to share their film and put a gadget on your page. If someone reading this does mind, please contact me.
What a lovely and worthwhile idea
That’s a really cool idea and story!