“Turning the Page” book project.
My passion for books started at an early age, when I came to England in 1963 aged 7 years.
For motivation we also have this profound statement
“ seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave” encouraging us to start learning from a young age.
Learning in a fun way has been proven to help people learn and retain knowledge longer and it’s more enjoyable.
Anecdotal research showed a lack of Islamic books for adults and children in Edinburgh.
There was little if any representation of Ethnic Minority Authors.
The seed for a book project was sown in 2002. At that time it was a stand alone project which I ran and was called “learning Together”.
Since then I’ve joined with MWAE and now our project’s called “
“Turning the Page”.
Mehreen joined me a couple years ago and is just as passionate as me and with Mehreen’s help Turning the Page is getting bigger and better.
Our focus is to increase literacy skills across the board.
We raise additional funds by selling handmade cards, jewellery and book marks which are kindly donated to us
Our aims are:
•to sell Islamic and non fiction English story books and introduce books by Ethnic Minority Authors
•to encourage adults and children to fall in love with books
•Not just for learning but also to read for pleasure.
. to help pupils gain academic, Islamic, social, moral, personal development and a strong foundation
•to empower parents and children to learn together
•to work closely with local schools and Masjids
•to create a community hub
This will be achieved by ( inshallah)• providing good quality non fiction and fiction books by Muslim and indigenous authors. • which parents and children can relate to • inviting Muslim and indigenous Authors to share their stories • an opportunity for children to work and interact with them • providing text books to our Little Muslim School • selling books at our MWAE and local events • We have plans for a library service too • Sustained partnership with parents children and local schools. to improve interaction and learning between diverse communities • carrying out reading tests to ascertain reading levels and then have workshops for parent and child to improve learning thru practical sessions • Encourage people to be part of the solution and work alongside MWAE’s book project.
Outcome so far.
. Mehreen reached out to local schools , to work in partnership with. We’ll be proving a curated box of books on loan, for teachers to use in their classroom.
. Both schools are very excited to be part of our project.
. We’ve had young members of our own families helping out at events. They enjoyed themselves and learned new skills , which they can now add to their CV’s.
. In addition we have Nahid, Saduf and Raya who recently joined us. The team aims to take our project to new heights.
.People have subscribed to our main MWAE messaging service for info about our MWAE projects and upcoming events.
. Lots of positive community response
.we have served at least 200 people. . . numbers will increase as we now have a lager selection of books and continually add new titles to our stock.
If you are interested in helping please contact us and we be happy to have you on
board.
Kalsoom