Have you met Roshan the Book-Carrying Camel?
There’s a lot of bad news in the world, but please, look over here for a moment and meet Roshan the Book-Carrying Camel. Roshan is basically a sentient bookmobile making his way to small, rural villages in Pakistan to deliver much needed reading material to children.
Due in large part to Covid-19 lockdown protocols, access to learning (and literary diversion!) has been limited for the children of Kech, a district in the largely rural Pakistani province of Balochistan. To remedy this problem, high school principal Raheema Jalal started the Camel Project last August in collaboration with the Female Education Trust and Alif Laila Book Bus Society, much to the delight of village children:
The school children, who live in remote villages where the streets are too narrow for vehicles, put on their best clothes and rush out to meet Roshan. They crowd around the animal shouting “the camel is here!”
Jalal would like to expand the program with more camels, and is hoping to raise money to do so (Roshan’s driver, previously a deliverer of firewood, is apparently quite pleased with his new gig).
And please, nobody tell PRH about this, lest they try to acquire Roshan.
[via Reuters]