“It was almost winter and Bear was getting sleepy,” the Iranian cleric reads aloud. He has taken off his clerical robe, put aside his white turban and is trying to entertain a group of children in one of Iran’s poorest villages.

In between phrases, he troops back and forth to make sure everyone is listening. “Are you with me?” he asks. “What did Bear want to do?” The children, who are painting their school walls, reply: “Bear had a story to tell.”

It’s all in a day’s work for Esmail Azarinejad, a father of two who is not your average cleric. Iranian theocrats are better known for delivering inflammatory remarks at Friday prayers or fulminating on television against a backdrop of “Death to America” chants.

Azarinejad, 39, sees his mission somewhat differently. When he’s not teaching Islamic philosophy or Arabic literature at his city’s seminary, he travels to villages in the impoverished south-west of Iran, distributing books from the boot of his old Peugeot and reading passages from books such as Bear Has a Story to Tell by the American author Philip C Stead.

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“Since I came back to my city nearly six years ago after studying in Qom, I realised that 98% of the kids in our villages did not have access to books other than what’s taught in schools,” he said.

In his free time, he has started visiting the province’s poorest villages, reading books for kids, showing them films or helping them paint their schools.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Azarinejad also organises film screenings for children in south-west Iran.

“Reading books and telling tales is an excuse for me,” he told the Guardian. “My aim is their intellectual development, so that they have a beautiful world and be able to develop skills. I have a slogan, which says: story, ball, colour. Story will make their minds and world beautiful, ball is playing sport and being healthy, and colour is about painting schools or their libraries.”

Azarinejad’s car carries a range of books and films including the Persian translations of titles by the Canadian author and illustrator Peter H Reynolds and those written by the American author Megan McDonald, who is known for her Judy Moody series.

“I try to prepare the space for their creativity rather than teach them what to do,” Azarinejad said. “I have no prejudice in choosing book titles, whether written by a foreign writer or by an Iranian, whether religious or not, any book that is fit for developing their mind and skills is good to me.”

In his latest trip this week to villages in Dishmok district, Azarinejad showed a four-minute film by the Palme d’Or-winning Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami to 15 children. Early in his career, Kiarostami, who became Iran’s foremost film-maker before his death in 2016, worked at the institute for intellectual development of children and young adults in Tehran, making films about children.

Azarinejad said showing Kiarostami’s Two Solutions for One Problem seemed essential in the village because he realised the adults there had been locked in a feud for some time.

“Afterwards, I gave them five words to use and compose a story of their own: oak tree, dried-up river, grandma, goat and crocodile. They have oak trees in the area and also a river, and I wanted to draw their attention to the fact that one day their river might dry up,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Azarinejad: ‘My hope is these kids, so long as I can encourage them to read books, I’ll remain hopeful.’

Iran has a rich tradition of storytelling and fairytales. Its oldest form of dramatic performance is called Naghali, which is on Unesco’s list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding. According to Unesco, “the performer – the naqqāl – recounts stories in verse or prose accompanied by gestures and movements, and sometimes instrumental music and painted scrolls”.

Azarinejad said the age of social media has hugely sidelined such ancient traditions that need to be revived, something he hopes to do by encouraging children to write down fairytales told to them by their grandparents, and then recite them to their friends.

The Iranian cleric, who earns about 15m rials (£275) a month, insisted he works on a benevolent basis but encourages donations to support his activities. Provincial locals are raising money to buy him a new car.

“I use my private car, use my own petrol, I take my own food while visiting these villages,” said the cleric, who documents his work on social media. “I have not pursued government help, nor they have given me any. This is happening in the sidelines of my life, not related to my job.”

Azarinejad, who has two children aged seven and 12, said the tough times Iran is facing because of sanctions and a tense political situation have not taken hope away from him.

“There’s a sense of hopeless, there are financial difficulties, but personally I haven’t lost my hope,” he said. “My hope is these kids, so long as I can encourage them to read books, I’ll remain hopeful. So long as I see kids with books in their hand, hope will be there.”

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