During last year I have had several meetings with members of the local council in my village and we have planned various projects in which I will also take part. An interesting idea came up in these meetings which I believe will have effects well beyond this village and even at the national level. In Iran, there are numerous adolescents who are active in promoting a reading habit in villages and underprivileged districts and we planned to organize an event to appreciate their efforts with a medal, for which we chose the title “Gavin”. In ancient Persian, the word Gavin means “the land of Pahlavans” and it is as well the name of a mountain close to my village. In the Iranian cultural tradition, Pahlavan refers to someone who is not only a hero, but a hero armed with the power of wisdom and knowledge.
The call for this event has already been sent out. It is destined to teachers, librarians, reading promotion NGOs, etc. who are asked to introduce activist adolescents to us. I am responsible for planning, organizing, supervising and financing this event and my fellows in the village will run the event. We have lots of ideas and we are also concerned about the outcomes of our work as we don’t want to cause unhealthy competitive attitudes among adolescents- that’s something we are particularly working on.
You will hear more from us about this experience.
