And so, the 10th edition of our Cards for Literacy campaign with Deutsche Post comes to an end, and here we are to let you know how many postcards were sent for this good cause in 2022. Without further ado…
Postcrossers in Germany sent a total of 123,596 postcards during December, raising €12,359.60 for Stiftung Lesen!
Hurray! A brilliant result, which will help many people improve their reading skills in Germany, and thus improve their outcomes in areas like education, professional success, and integration. Well done to all our enthusiastic German members, and also to all the recipients of these postcards, who welcome them with open arms mailboxes!
Our heartfelt thank you to Deutsche Post, for partnering with the Postcrossing community and making this possible. Being a non-profit organization, funding is super important for Stiftung Lesen to run their various programs, but also to do research into different aspects of literacy! For instance, they’re trying to answer big questions like, how are reading behaviors affected by different media, and whether teenagers read differently than adults. It’s by studying these issues that they’re able to make policy recommendations, that in turn contribute to sustainable social development.
And as always at the end of the campaign, Paulo runs his magical script to randomly choose the recipients of vouchers for the Deutsche Post shop. If you’re in Germany and sent at least one postcard last December, keep an eye on your inbox for a message from Postcrossing soon. You might be one of our winners!
The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!
I’m a big reader of sci-fi books, and the way they end up predicting the future (or not predicting it at all!) can be surprising. The most unexpected things come true, and then at the same time we don’t have the long-promised flying cars! What’s going on? Anyway, science fiction aside—what are your predictions for the future?
In March, write about your predictions for the future.
In some ways, my predictions are a little pessimistic (sorry!). For example, I think that worldwide trends are leading towards a higher likelihood of humans coming into contact with new-to-us diseases, as our habitations push further and further into the habitats of animals that humans don’t normally come into contact with. On the other hand, I think that science is going to come up with some great answers for that: mRNA vaccines are a great start, and I think we can make it faster and safer to produce them all the time.
I think we’re also going to get better at treating all sorts of other conditions, partly with vaccines, partly with medication, and partly with gene editing. (There’s a great tool called CRISPR which can edit DNA, and I read the best joke about it the other day: KFC has asked scientists to edit the chicken genome—they want to make it CRISPR! Okay, it’s a bit niche, I know.) The things we’re going to be able to understand and fix and improve are going to be astounding.
I also think that no matter what, humans are going to come together and support each other. A lot of people take a pessimistic view of humanity, and I can see why… but in every terrible situation, there are also amazing people, and I think those people will always rise to the challenge.
Now it’s your turn! You can write it on your postcards this month, or just answer in a comment: what are your predictions for the future?
By now, I’m sure you’ve all heard the news of the devastating earthquake that took place in Turkey and Syria on February 6. Nearly 50,000 people have lost their lives so far and hundreds of thousands more have been injured, but there are millions more needing assistance across both countries. And all of this in the middle of winter, while the ground keeps shaking… it’s a really desperate situation.
Lately, we’ve been receiving messages from postcrossers, asking how they can help. While we are not experts, we believe that donating money to local organizations that are on the ground is the most efficient way to help in an emergency like this, as they will know best what people actually need, and can funnel resources accordingly. So, we asked postcrossers in Türkiye and Syria which organizations they recommend — here are their answers:
this is a non-governmental organization funded by the Turkish musician and philanthropist Haluk Levent. It works in several different areas of solidarity and cooperation, and it has been very active in disaster relief efforts.
This is the governmental agency that is coordinating disaster relief efforts in Türkiye — they organize the work with other NGOs, and most of the food, clothing, and other needs of the victims are taken care of by this agency.
A volunteer-run organization that participates in rescue and evacuation missions in Syria, usually as a result of bombings, but now active in disaster relief efforts as well.
Besides these local groups, there are other international organizations present in Türkiye and Syria, among which the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, UNICEF and the UN Crisis Relief Fund are the ones we hear referred to the most. All of these agencies have decades of experience, and a good record helping in emergency situations.
We hope these links will help and encourage you to join us in making a donation to help mitigate the unthinkable effects of this crisis on millions of people. Your donation could become a hot meal, a blanket, a tent, or the help someone who has lost everything needs to restart their life — all of which will be welcome and important in these difficult times.
The day has come, when we finally announce the results of the book and postcard set giveaway we’ve been doing with the Accidentally Wes Anderson project for the past few months!
Hundreds of postcrossers participated, leaving comments or sending postcards to the AWA headquarters in New York, and we couldn’t be happier that so many of you decided to take part. We learned about soooooo many new places worthy of a detour or a full trip… 😍 Beauty lurks at every corner, it seems, if only one knows how to look for it!
So now, without further ado, here are the lucky winners, as chosen by Paulo’s script:
Because they want to see their new postcards travel around the world to as many hands as possible, the nice people at AWA are running a discount for postcrossers, in which you get 30% off when buying a set of postcards. Just use promo code POSTCROSSING at checkout to receive 30% off your postcards order. A special “Snail Mail” collectible sticker is included in all orders! 😍
And last but not least, thank you for all of your participations and enthusiasm! We hope you will all go out and explore this world we live in, with all its quirkinesses and special places, worthy of a movie scene! Make sure to snap some photos and upload them to the AWA map, to pass them along to other intrepid explorers.
In the US, February is designated as “Black History Month”, intended to highlight the stories of the many African-American people whose stories have often gone unheard. In honour of that, I’ve been looking into the story of the “Six Triple Eight”, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, a non-white battalion of the Women’s Army Corps, made up of 855 women in total, commanded by Major Charity Adams and Captains Mary F. Kearney and Bernice G. Henderson, who were themselves African-Americans. Charity Adams (pictured right) was the highest-ranking Black woman in the US army by the end of the war. When the army proposed a white man to manage the battalion, due to lack of faith in their ability as a non-white unit to manage the job without supervision, she reportedly refused to countenance this (with the words “Sir, over my dead body, sir!”).
Though the group is often referred to as having been the only all-Black, all-female battalion to be sent overseas during World War II, that’s not quite true. There were also Puerto Rican women in the unit, and at least one Mexican woman. Nonetheless, white women were not a part of this unit, which was active from 1945 to 1946, and sent to the UK to manage a backlog of mail that was not being sent to the soldiers it was intended for. Their motto: “No Mail, Low Morale”.
Second Lt. Freda le Beau serving Major Charity Adams a soda at the opening of the battalion’s snack bar in Rouen, France. Source: New York Times.
By all accounts, the task they faced was monumental. The mail was unsorted and just lying around, with millions of items, including parcels containing food (some of which was apparently being nibbled on by rats). This was Britain during the Blitz, so the women were also working in shifts in the dimly-lit warehouses—and the warehouses were also freezing cold, prompting the women to wear long johns and extra layers of clothing. The packages and letters themselves presented a problem: addresses weren’t always clear, and there were often soldiers who had the same name, or mail addressed to men by their nicknames.
Nonetheless, the women got the job done. They created a card index of soldiers’ details to help them in their task, an index which ultimately included around 7 million cards. There were three shifts of eight hours each day, and each shift cleared approximately 65,000 pieces of mail. They used clues in the letters and parcels to piece together to whom they should belong, updating the cards as they went. In the end, they completed their task in three months, rather than the projected six! They took their assignment seriously, and I’m sure their efforts made such a difference to soldiers who thanks to them finally got word from home. If postcards bring us joy now, imagine how much those letters and care packages meant to soldiers in World War II. The Six Triple Eight restored both mail and morale, and in record time too.
Members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion take part in a parade ceremony in honor of Joan d’Arc at the marketplace where she was burned at the stake. Source: National Archives at College Park.
After the war, the group was disbanded. They ultimately received the European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, and finally, in 2022, the Congressional Gold Medal. As of 2022, six members of the battalion were still alive: Romay Davis, Cresencia Garcia, Fannie McClendon, Gladys E. Blount, Lena King, and Anna Mae Robertson.
Apparently, there’s going to be a Netflix film about it, so perhaps more people will learn about the Six Triple Eight soon—will you be planning on watching it? Did you know about this battalion’s story already?
