Welcome To Afghan Children’s Songbook Project
Hearing your favorite song brings up memories of happy times. For Afghans, whose songs have been intentionally eradicated, hearing a familiar childhood song is a very powerful experience. The sound alone can bring them to tears. As one Afghan stated after the first takeover of the Taliban in the late 1990’s, “They bombed our homes, destroyed our roads, left buildings in a rubble, but when they took our music, they took our soul.”
From the onset of this project, Louise was introduced to Arsalan Lutfi and the Lutfi family who run TriVision Studios in both the U.S. and in Afghanistan. TriVision generously offered to be a strong partner in the project, helping to design, and facilitate the creation of the songbook, printing and distribution. TriVision is currently designing the new digital books to be available in early 2022.
The first songbook, Qu Qu Qu Barg-e-Chinaar, includes a CD of sixteen songs and an accompanying booklet with the lyrics and original children’s drawings. The songs are in Dari, Pashto, Hazaragi and Uzbeki. In 2011 a second songbook, Awsana See Sana, was printed with 16 more traditional songs. In addition, with the guidance of a team of Afghans, Louise created an accompanying Teacher’s Guide for each of the songbooks, which provides teachers with lesson linked to the songs that build on basic literacy skills. In 2018, Bood Nabood, a collection of 6 Afghan children’s folktales, was created.
Currently, 50,000 songbooks and 7500 Teacher’s Guides have been distributed to over 15 Provinces across Afghanistan. It was Louise’s dream to return the songs and folktales to the children of Afghanistan so that they would continue to live on in the lives of Afghan children. Thank you to the many, many generous supporters, friends and family who helped make this project become a reality.
The songbooks are currently not available but the books & music, along with animation, are available in digital format . Click on Available Now! to find the digital music.
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