Our School in Herat!

Our Girls School in Herat, Afghanistan!

In total, we raised about $7000 through my birthday appeal last December, the Walkathon I organized last spring, a fundraising speech I made to my grade at school, and just by generous donations which came in through the website and in person.

A massive thanks to all the people, especially the kids, who supported Kids For a Better Future. Together we were able to support the purchase of school supplies and computers as well as the library which will be built once more funds are raised. Of course, these schools and other WAW projects continue to need your support. To keep supporting WAW please see www.womenforafghanwomen.org.

Here is an update from a Women for Afghan Women (WAW) board member about the schools and how our money helped. It has a lot of interesting details about life in that part of the world.

Dear Akash,

I went to Herat in September, 2007, to see how the schools are doing. As you know, there are two schools for girls. Each school runs two sessions per day with a total of about 1500 students. It takes at least one hour to get to the schools by car from Herat City because the roads aren't paved.

Little school across the river

Desks being delivered to our school!

They're really more like trails through farmland than the sort of thing we think of as a road. The area is quite sparsely settled and everyone lives in small one-story (probably one or two room) mud (adobe) buildings with dome-like roofs. A few houses are generally grouped together and surrounded by a mud wall. As I drove through, I felt as if I had been transported back to the Middle Ages in a time machine. Cattle wander around, men and children are driving around in carts pulled by donkeys or on the donkeys themselves, but every so often someone comes roaring along on a motorcycle. Here and there are tiny stores where people can buy things like cooking oil, vegetables, tools and odds and ends.

When you finally get to the first school, the larger, two-story one, it's a shock because it looks so modern compared to the architecture you've been seeing for the past hour. Kids swarmed out of the classrooms and practically trampled us with their excitement when we arrived. Teachers had to force them back to their rooms! You have to remember that there's very little variety in their lives. Their fathers farm, their mothers take care of the bunches of kids they all have, they go to bed early because there's no electricity, they rarely get into the city.

But back to the schools, which have now been taken over by the Ministry of Education. Each class has about 20 students. We visited most of the classes and found the educational materials required by the Ministry of Education to be very disappointing. They have very few books, and the books they have are very far from the standards you are used to. But they all had pens and pencils and notebooks. These materials were purchased with the money you raised, and you should be very happy and proud of that. There is no library in the school as yet (because there isn't enough money to start one), but there is a small computer lab. Your money also enables us to buy and bring out there about 5 computers and they were set up and working. Since there's no electricity, the students had to start a generator that was in sitting the hall in order to use them. The generator is very loud and throws off a lot of smelly smoke, but at least the computers were going and the students proudly showed off their basic English.
We were also very dismayed to learn that there aren't enough teachers for all the classes. I don't remember the exact number, but something like 12 classes did not have teachers in the larger school. In some rooms, kids were just sitting there doing nothing. In others, older girls were teaching them. This is a problem throughout the country. First of all, the Taliban closed most of the schools in Afghanistan, and women weren't allowed to attend those that were open. So for about 6 years no teachers were trained. Then, thousands of teachers left the country during the 26 years of war. And finally, most teachers just don't want to live in these rural areas--or commute to them. There are many areas throughout the country where there are no schools because there are no teachers.

They faced the same problem in the smaller school, which is about 20 minutes away (across a river, which was actually dry when we were there). The wind is so fierce there that some of the windows were broken, and we will see that they get fixed before the winter sets in.

Despite the problems, poor teaching materials and not enough teachers, there is learning taking place. Some of the students will go to college and enter the professions--an opportunity none of them had before the schools were built. They are all very eager to learn and have no idea of how poor their education is compared to that in developed countries.

To give you an idea of how desperate the people are for education, we also visited two literacy classes for adult women in another village. In both classes, the women learned to read in 4 months!

It's going to take a long time for the educational system in Afghanistan to reach all the children who live in the country and for the standards to improve. But they have to start somewhere. These schools, standing out there in the wilderness, look like palaces from a fairy tale. They're an inspiration to thousands of children and adults, who want a better life for themselves.

It is wonderful that you are bringing the attention of American children and their families to the needs of children in Afghanistan. Women for Afghan Women thanks you for all your efforts to support our Herat schools, and wishes you luck in your future endeavors.

Love. Esther