Children’s shoes for Şanlıurfa

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The population of Turkey as of 31 December 2019 is 83,154,997, of which children between the ages of 0 and 14 account for 24.29%, making them a large and important part of the Turkish population. They are the future. We all have a responsibility to uphold children’s rights, because every child has the same right to equal treatment, health, social participation, good opportunities in life and for development, and much more besides.

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The majority of children in Turkey live in rural areas and are therefore closer to nature. The children spend much of their free time there playing, running around and climbing outdoors with their friends and siblings. The SARIAS Foundation heard about a middle school in Şanlıurfa, in the south-east of Turkey, where the shoes of some pupils in the 5th to 8th grades had suffered from playing a lot of football, climbing and running around in the sometimes rough outdoor environments. They therefore lacked adequate and seasonally appropriate footwear for walking to school and attending lessons. To remedy this, in January 2021, the SARIAS Foundation asked teachers at Mehmet Akif Ersoy Secondary School to determine the children’s requirements and was subsequently able to send 45 pairs of children’s shoes to the school. 15 girls and 30 boys between the ages of 10 and 14 each received a new, warm pair of shoes. Every size between a 34 (UK size 2) and a 41 (UK size 8) was provided and the children were very happy to exchange their old shoes for new ones.

The SARIAS Foundation wishes you a happy valentines!

“Fairy Tales of the World”: The second volume is finished!

Shortly before Christmas, the time had finally come; we received the freshly printed picture books with the Chinese fairy tale “The Two Melons”.

The story tells of two women, one good and one bad, of course – as befits a fairy tale. The good woman devotedly cares for an injured bird despite her poverty, while the bad woman has a high opinion of herself and thinks only about how fast she can get rich. Both are rewarded for their behaviour with a “treasure” at the end of the story. It is hiding in a giant melon.

The story makes it clear to young and old alike in expressive pictures how compassion, a willingness to help and selfless devotion to other living beings can be transformed into good a thousand times over.
The fairy tale from China appears in our book for the first time in a German translation. It has been beautifully illustrated by the Istanbul artist Elif Yemenici.

Like our first picture book, you can also obtain this new work from us free of charge. If you are interested, please send a short email to info@sarias-stiftung.org and we will send you a copy by post. If you are interested in receiving several copies, for example for a school class, please contact us and we can arrange an appointment for you to collect them.

The Ethiopian fairy tale back in Ethiopia

What could be more natural than to introduce our beautiful picture book to children living in Ethiopia?
To achieve this, the SARIAS Foundation has organised and financed a book shipment to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. 100 of the storybooks were donated to the German Embassy School in Addis Ababa by airfreight.

There are 140 of these German schools abroad in more than 70 countries around the world. Only about every fourth pupil comes from a German family, e.g. if the parents are in the country in question for professional reasons. The others are local children or those from other countries of origin; all learning together with and from each other.

Of course, there have been and still are school closures for longer periods of time at the school in Addis Ababa because of the pandemic. So the primary school children were all the more pleased when they were allowed to return to school and found the new picture books waiting for them there. The books are distributed in the primary school classes, but will remain as stock in the school for future classes. This way many children can enjoy them for a long time to come!

We wish the children many happy hours enjoying the story and the illustrations.

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