‘Tis the season for giving, and University students can add philanthropy to their holiday plans by helping a University alumnus and current student collect books for an all-girls school in Pakistan.
University alumnus Christen Romero and College of Humanities and Social Sciences College Council President Courtney Broussard have teamed up to create a Humanities and Social Sciences College Council-sponsored book drive to help support Shadow Girls Academy, a small school tucked away in the hills of northern Pakistan founded in part by Romero.
The school has pledged to provide young Pakistani women with a safe learning environment, despite the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s education in the Middle East.
“We wanted to do something around finals that would let students give back without asking students to spend money,” Broussard said in an e-mail to The Daily Reveille. “Donating textbooks and used novels is a great way of meeting both goals.”
Broussard said she connected with Romero, whom she had never met, after reading The Daily Reveille’s Oct. 4 article featuring Romero and his efforts to get University students to help the remote school.
“Our college council had been looking for a service project to do at the end of the semester,” Broussard said. “In the past we’d done something in Baton Rouge, but we wanted to find something that didn’t cost students extra money, because what college student has that lying around?”
Broussard said she thought the school was in need of textbooks when she read the article.
“It just seemed like something that they might need,” Broussard said.
Romero was able to build a library out of one of the classrooms last year with the help of money raised from local Baton Rouge fundraisers.
“However, we haven’t been able to stock it like we wanted to,” Romero said.
Romero said some of the girls wake up as early as 4 a.m. and don’t go to sleep until 11 p.m., “spending the vast majority of their day studying and going to school.”
“One girl is studying to become a pilot, others want to be doctors, some dream of being lawyers, and there is one in the group who is incredibly talented and studying musical theory,” Romero publicized on Facebook.
Romero said the girls are enthusiastic to read and are in desperate need of English books.
“To go to university there, you have to know English,” Romero said.
Broussard pitched the idea for a book drive to Romero, other members on the college council and advisers within the college.
“They all thought it was a great idea, and it all kind of fell into place really easily,” Broussard said. “They were all signed on and on board once I cleared it with them.”
Students can donate used books and novels at the Student Government office in the Student Union and the Student Services Center in Hodges Hall beginning next week.
“It helps that the bookstore is right there. If you’re selling [your books] back to LSU, you’re already in the Union and can take them down to the office,” Broussard said.
Broussard and Romero hope students are eager to donate their books and see it as a convenient way to give back to a cause.
“I know I always have books lying around that I just hate to see in a pile,” Broussard said. “Those girls are really going to appreciate that book a whole lot more than we did when we were pulling our hair out studying.”
The Facebook event Romero created to promote the drive is already receiving positive feedback from University students.
“It’s a really good cause,” said Page Estis, business administration senior. “Especially if a student can’t sell a book back, what else are they going to do with them aside from give them away?”
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Contact Julian Tate at [email protected]