ephemeral

English Materials for Mongolia
I'm posting this publicly in case anyone wants to link to it. I'm not including Colleen's addresses in this post due to its public nature, but if you don't already have either/both of them, feel free to ask me and to pass them along to anyone you would want mailing packages or sending email to *your* sister. :)

My name is Colleen McMillon, and I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Uliastai, Mongolia. I am helping my school create an English Resource Room for students and teachers. My school currently has 740 students and 34 teachers. All students study English from the 4th grade through the 11th grade, as Mongolia is very eager for young people and others to become fluent in English. Some of the teachers are also trying to learn English.

Right now we have a few books, but they are mostly high school level textbooks, which are too advanced for the students. We have no listening materials, games, and very few teaching materials. English books here are expensive and difficult to find, so my school is not able to buy books, games, etc. for the English room. There is also not a library here in Uliastai with good English reading materials. My school would greatly appreciate anything that you could donate to help us create this room. We certainly do not need new items, used would be wonderful. Below is a list of ideas for items that we could use.

children's books (1st grade through 6th grade)
youth books
games to help practice English
posters to decorate the room
listening materials (CDs or tapes)
English movies
teaching materials (pictures of objects, etc.)

Anything you could donate would be greatly appreciated by all our students and teachers. If you would like to donate, please send items to the following address. M-bag or ground mail would be the cheapest way to send items. If you have questions, please feel free to contact me by email [address deleted for internet post - pls request privately]. I usually check my email once a week.

As for what's appropriate to send, there aren't really any taboos about magic or sex, but while some Asimov, Harry Potter, cheesy romance novels, and Judy Blume books are okay, you probably shouldn't send any "Playboys".
For posters, she did ask if I knew any bands that would be willing to donate posters, so if you have some old band, movie, or geek posters from your bachelor/ette years, this would be a good way to recycle them. :)

Also, if you would like to donate, but find the mailing costs prohibitive (especially for non-book material), talk to me and I'll probably mail them for you along with her next care package.

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