Logistics

Video below. Our quest for portable, rugged, solar-rechargeable lighting for refugee camp and village classrooms in Chad is down to a two-light showdown. The two contenders are 1) a new lighting system designed in partnership with electronics manufacturer AltusLumen and 2) the winner of our prior field tests of off-the-shelf equipment, the SOLUX-LED-50.

Watch videos below. To help demonstrate the impact our donors are having, and to show what is really happening in education in the refugee camps in eastern Chad, we sent a Flip camcorder and memory stick to our field partner CORD. The many videos that came back far exceed our expectations, and we'll be sharing them gradually over the next several weeks.

If you donated to provide English textbooks for refugee-organized English classes in eastern Chad, or if you are considering supporting the English classes, here is a photo you should see. Taken in May 2009, it shows several hundred of the English students from Bredjing Refugee Camp. These are some of the Darfuris we are directly helping.

Our recent shipment of 1,750 pairs of reading glasses to Darfur refugee camps and villages in eastern Chad also included a variety of solar lights and bilingual English/Arabic and French/Arabic dictionaries – all tools needed to support reading. Below are photos showing the arrival of this aid and some of the Darfuris who will play a critical role in integrating it into the camps' educational system.

Field tests in eastern Chad are under way to determine the best solar lighting solution for schools and outdoors literacy classes in refugee camps and villages there. This page will be an ongoing summary of results, which we are sharing not only with supporters of our project, but for the benefit of other aid organizations. We have found very little public literature comparing lights that meet our needs: ultra-portable, rugged, wide-beam for group reading, inexpensive, easy to use and maintain.

If you read about us in the July 2009 issue of Costco Connection, Book Wish Foundation has a challenge for you. Collectively, we are calling on the Costco community to help build a 5,000-book library in a Darfur refugee camp in eastern Chad. With a circulation of nearly 8 million, only a small fraction of the Connection's readers would need to contribute to enable us to break ground on a new library.

"Changing the World" is the cover story of the July 2009 issue of Costco Connection. We are honored to be featured in the story alongside Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea!

By sharing our mission with millions of readers, Costco is giving us a huge opportunity to help Darfur refugees through reading. If only a tiny fraction of the Connection readers donate even $5, we can build a 5,000-book library to serve tens of thousands in one of the refugee camps in eastern Chad. It's a thrilling thought.

Major news from eastern Chad! Our shipment of 1,750 pairs of reading glasses has reached Bredjing Refugee Camp! This despite an attempted carjacking on May 26 en route from Hadjer Hadid to Abeche, Chad, which our partner CORD's drivers narrowly escaped. With shots fired at point blank range, it is fair to say that the brave aid workers have risked their lives in delivering the glasses to the refugees. We are tremendously thankful that they were not harmed, and inspired by the incredible photos below of the glasses being distributed.

Respect and Admiration. These are not words typically associated with the plight of refugees. But they were used by Angelina Jolie, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Ann Curry, NBC journalist and news anchor, and authors Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner) and Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea), when they shared stories about the incredible inspiration and determination of refugees – real people with real needs – the theme of this year’s World Refugee Day.

Want to learn about life in a Darfur refugee camp? About the importance of education for refugees? Watch this video from the Library of Congress of the lecture Waging Peace: Building a New Life After Conflict for the Victims of Darfur. The speaker is Brian Wakley, chief executive of UK charity CORD, Book Wish Foundation's on-the-ground partner in the refugee camps of eastern Chad.