Doc Ahmad Hajiri

  Assalamu Alaykum! (Peace be upon you all) Let me talk about the recent successful project we had just this June. It was coined "Books not War: A 'give-a-book' project for the children of Sulu". I will share in this humble post how the project started, how we planned it, the struggles we experienced and finally, how we reached the finish line, Alhamdulillah!  It started with a Message Last October 2015, I received a message from a reader of this blog (and my other blog Tausug 101 ) telling me about her plans. She organized this project where they would collect used books to be sent to less fortunate children in the far-flung areas. By then, they already created an FB Page entitled "Books not War", so we kept that title until the very end. And of all the provinces in the country, they chose Sulu to be the beneficiary. It was indeed a simple yet very generous act of kindness from their part and I was really touched. Maa sha Allah! How won...

It came as a surprise to everyone in Mindanao State University-Sulu Laboratory High School (MSU-Sulu LHS). The old, ugly and almost neglected façades of the Grades 7 and 10 were transformed into newly repaired and repainted ones in just one weekend! Only a few knew about what happened and who were those behind it. And those who have no idea where left amazed and yes, surprised. This was how it was planned, and just as how we wanted it to be. The First MSU-Sulu LHS Alumni “Give-Back” project was the first ever project done by the high school alumni for their alma mater without soliciting even a single centavo from their school. It was a spur-of-the-moment event that started from just mere concern for their beloved alma mater to a sudden, successful project, Alhamdulillah. Yes, we started from nothing. It started with the statement “This makes us sad, what can we do?” to “Yes, maybe we can do something small first” until “Let us make it happen then!”. At first, we only thought...