A school teacher bicycles books to children living in remote villages in Afghanistan.
“We work as a sort of library – every week, we bring kids new books and take back the old ones to distribute to children in other villages.”
Saber Hosseini is a school teacher who takes his bicycle library to remote villages in Afghanistan.
“I started alone with 200 storybooks for kids, and started riding to remote villages throughout Bamiyan province. Soon I recruited more volunteers – now there are 20 of us, and we have a collection of about 6,000 books.”
“We ride bikes for several reasons: first, we don’t have enough money for cars. Second, some villages are only reachable by bike. And lastly, it’s a bit symbolic – the Taliban have at times used bicycles in their bomb attacks, so the message I want to convey is that we can replace this violence with culture.
One time, I talked to children in a village about guns, using the slogan “say no to guns and yes to books”. The next time I went to their village, the kids had gathered up all of their plastic toy guns and handed them over to me – but they had one condition: they wanted their village to be the first in the next round of book deliveries so that they could get first pick. It was the most joyful moment of my life!” – Saber Hosseini speaking to The Observers.
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