Books With Wings

 

Books With Wings is a student-initiated effort to collect and ship textbooks and provide funding for lab equipment to medical students in Afghanistan. Last year, over 2000 books were sent from the University of Toronto. This year, our goal is to collect even more books and donations to help complete the medical libraries at Kandahar University, Khost University, and Balkh University, assisting in the education and training of medical students in a society that desperately needs them. We are also investigating establishing a relationship with medical schools in Ethiopia.

The Books With Wings project expanded to the University of Toronto in 2003 and is supported by the U of T Medical Society, the U of T International Health Program, the U of T Faculty of Medicine and the Centre for International Health. It has also garnered the support of the Canadian Armed Forces in the form of transportation of all the supplies. It is an official project of the Canadian Federation of Medical Students.


You can play an important role by:

 

Drop off sites

Donating textbooks (medical, nursing, health, and basic science) published in the last 10 years. Donations can be dropped off at the following sites:

• Hart House, main reception
• Medical Sciences Building, Office of Student Affairs, Room 2171B
• Health Sciences Building, Centre for International Health, Room 569, & Nursing Lounge
• Rehabilitation Sciences Building, Room 204
• Medical Education Offices of:

o Toronto General Hospital
o Mount Sinai (& Library)
o Toronto Western Hospital
o St. Michael’s Hospital
o Sunnybrook Hospital
o Hospital for Sick Children
o Women’s College Hospital
o Credit Valley Hospital, Mississauga

Donations
 Making a monetary donation for shelving, equipment, and project logistics. Cheques can be made out to “Books With Wings” and mailed to:

Diana Alli (Re: Books with Wings)
Office of Student Affairs
Room 2171B, Medical Sciences Building
1 King’s College Circle
Toronto ON, M5S 1A8

Donations will be accepted until March 31st, 2009.

Contact Information

If you would like to arrange for the collection of large donations or have any additional questions
, please contact us via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

To speak directly with the co-directors, please contact ;

Ansa Rana : This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Dinusha Senaratne: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Volunteering Opportunities

(3) Volunteering your time to help make Books With Wings an even greater success. Volunteer opportunities include recruitment of textbook donations, monitoring a specific drop-off site and coordinating pick-ups from that site, organizing book drives, fundraising, public relations, and cataloguing book donations. To be put on the Books With Wings listserv in order to be notified about upcoming meetings, please contact us via email.


Our volunteer sessions are every friday at 1 -4 pm. We meet in the Medical Sciences
Building near Tim hortons and head off together towards our room in the Fitz Gerald
Building.

Your support would be greatly appreciated.

Past successes of the project

 

2006-2007: Over 4000 books collected by Books With Wings were successfully sent and received in Afghanistan. Every functioning medical university in Afghanistan has now received at least a small donation from Books With Wings, and future goals involve ensuring the medical libraries are complete.

2005-2006: Over 1500 books were collected from students, physicians and publishers across Toronto. Funding received from Toronto Notes was donated to Herat medical school.

2004-2005: Contributions from medical students and physicians in Toronto resulted in over 1800 books, an overhead projector, and shelving units to be transported to Al-Beeruny Medical Library, 2 hours north of Kabul. 400 books were also collected from the medical community in Manitoba. These books were gratefully received by Afghan medical students who shelved them safely in their growing library.

2003-2004: Medical students and physicians across Canada contributed over 1700 books, which the Canadian Armed Forces generously shipped to Afghanistan and transported directly to the Kabul Medical Library.