Fueled by her own childhood experience as an English language learner, a Milwaukee medical school student is collecting donations of books for newly arrived Afghan children.
Maie Zagloul, a second-year student at the Medical College of Wisconsin, believes books will be key to helping Afghan evacuee kids learn English and feel settled in their new communities.
“That doesn’t need to be something that holds them back,” she said.
The International Institute of Wisconsin, a Milwaukee refugee resettlement agency, will distribute the books she collects to their Afghan clients.
Zagloul knows well the value of reading. She was born in Milwaukee but shortly thereafter moved to Egypt with her family. When they returned and she enrolled in second grade, she was placed in an English as a Second Language program.
The ESL instruction meant she was pulled out of her regular classes. She found it difficult at first to connect with her classmates and to feel like she belonged.
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To help learn the language, Zagloul’s mother read to her every night. It sparked her love of reading and gave her a boost, she said.
“It’s something I carried with me this whole time,” she said.
As an undergraduate, Zagloul got involved with a program that aimed to help Palestinians in refugee camps learn English, and she thought back to those nights reading with her mother.
She created the organization Books for Chance and collected over 2,000 children’s books for Palestinian and Syrian refugee children abroad.
On the first trip, she dropped off the books herself at the refugee camp in Lebanon. As she collected more, she sent suitcases full of books with friends and relatives traveling to the region. In one case, she partnered with a local group that had shipped boxes of books by sea.
This year, as president of the American Muslim Medical Student Association at her school, she’s been spearheading the effort to collect books for Afghan evacuees here in Wisconsin.
“I was born and raised for the most part in Milwaukee, in ESL classrooms, and I just thought it would be wonderful to give back to where I was all those years ago,” Zagloul said.
When she reached out to the International Institute of Wisconsin, it told her there was a big need for children’s books among Afghan families.
Improved language skills “contribute to lifelong success,” especially for Afghan evacuee children, said Brian Curry, president of the agency.
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“In addition, we hope that reading together builds a special bond between parents and children that have been through tough times,” Curry said in a statement.
Zagloul has been contacting local libraries and mosques, distributing flyers and making social media posts to solicit donations of books. She’s also placed distribution boxes around campus.
Starting school in a new country with a new language and culture was tough, Zagloul said. She hopes reading makes the process a bit easier for Afghan kids.
“I hope it shows them that they belong here, too, and that they have a place in this world, and that they can do anything they want to do, and there’s no limitations to what they can do in this life,” she said.
Anyone who wants to donate children’s books can email Zagloul at [email protected]. Books for kids of all ages are accepted. The drive runs through Friday, but Zagloul will accept books after that.
Contact reporter Sophie Carson at (414) 223-5512 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @SCarson_News.
