“Donate a Pencil” Campaign 2021 – Let’s Fight the Virus and Change the Future of Children

It has been almost two years since the outbreak of COVID-19. To adapt to the changing situation, people all over the world keep on establishing new format of education to let children continue exploring the treasure house of knowledge under the pandemic. However, children from developing countries are not as lucky as Hong Kong students since they cannot replace face-to-face lessons with online classes due to inadequate resources and technological support. Thus, their learning progress is completely disrupted by class suspension under the pandemic. If the problem persists, those underprivileged children will lose the opportunity to escape from poverty. Girls will even be threatened by child marriage and female genital mutilation which greatly affect their physical and mental health. What can we do to help these vulnerable children?

Online Pencil Donation

Join “Little Philanthropist” Campaign (Chinese only)

Suspending Classes without Suspending Learning

In Nepal, anti-virus measures like school closure and lockdown have disrupted children’s education. To solve the problem, Plan International highly focused on helping children in developing countries to learn and read by themselves. Our office in Nepal works with the local working partner and provides self-learning books to students from pre-primary to primary 3 levels of around 70 schools, so that they can continue their education at home. Through self-learning, children will be able to stay motivated and confident towards studying. Thus, the negative influence on their academic performance brought by the pandemic can be minimised after resuming classes.

Prashant (in the middle) reads with his mother and siblings.

Eight-years-old Prashant is a primary 2 student. He was worried that his learning progress would be affected due to school closure. After receiving self-learning books from Plan International, he can now continue to study at home. He thanks Plan International for offering a helping hand, “I enjoy reading the self-learning books so I also encourage my siblings to read with me. I hope that Plan international can support us continuously.”

Self-Learning Fosters Reading Habits

Sonika, who is the same age as Prashant, also received help from Plan International. Without the guidance of school teachers, Sonika showed less interest in studying textbooks. The self-learning books have changed her attitude towards reading. “The books are easy to understand. We are able to develop a habit to read with Sonika” said Diliram, Sonika’s father.

Diliram reads the self-learning books with Sonika so that she can keep learning new knowledge during school closure.

We sincerely invite all of you to participate in the “Donate a Pencil” Campaign 2021 and provide learning support to almost 6,000 children from around 70 schools who are living in developing countries. Your donation will be used to support the education project in Nepal which will cost nearly HK$100,000 to satisfy the learning needs of local children. Let’s help children to grab the learning opportunities to change their entire life with knowledge. Your donation will provide comprehensive learning support to children as follows:

Event Details

“Donate a Pencil” Campaign 2021 will be held from October to November. The details are as follows:

Meanwhile, you may also make your donation through Online Pencil Donation, or invite children to participate in the “Little Philanthropist” campaign. . All these actions can gather our power and help the underprivileged children get rid of poverty.You are encouraged to bring along brand new pencils for donation. Let’s deliver our encouragement and care to children through sending them pencils and support them to access continuous education under COVID-19.

This year, part of the collected pencils will be sent to children in Nepal and part of them will be sent to the needy children in Hong Kong via Silver Stationery Shop. The fund raised will be used to support our education project in Nepal to eliminate hurdles of children’s learning under the pandemic. The project includes the following work:

• In coordination with education unit, design and disseminate radio schooling sessions in  the communities
• Print and distribute practice books and self-learning materials to the children who do not having access to alternative mode of education
• Provide training to teachers on psycho-social support under COVID-19 via virtual means
• Develop and disseminate psycho-social support sessions targeting students under COVID-19 via radio

Apart from donating pencils, you may also improve children’s life through our Child Sponsorship Programme and give encouragement and communicate with your sponsored child through letters. Your continuous donation will certainly rewrite their destiny.

Last Year’s Event Highlights

Last year, all pencils collected were sent to children in Myanmar and needy children in Hong Kong via Silver Stationery Shop. All donations were used to support Plan International’s work on early childhood care, development and education, including teaching children about personal hygiene and helping them to fight the virus. Thank you again for all of your generous support!