in the world, boasting the highest illiteracy rate and worst medical and educational facilities outside a few war zones in sub-Saharan Africa. Even in the best-case scenario, it will take it several decades even to approach the living standards of Pakistan or Bangladesh.”
It’ s not all bad news. Optimists and politicians frequently cite the 9 million children enrolled in school, about two-fifths of them girls; increased longevity, from 42 years to 62 years; a growing economy; a reduction in maternal mortality, a tenfold increase in the number of Afghans with access to basic health care; 20 million mobile phone owners; an abundance of newspapers, TV channels, and radio stations; and creation of the Afghan National Security Forces( ANSF), with 350,000 personnel.
But many, many problems remain, not the least of which is how people find hope in their lives. In April, Associated Press reporter Kathy Gannon reported that for most Afghans,“ fear dominates their lives and the lives of their children.” Shortly after filing that story, a gunman shot and injured Gannon as she waited in a car at a checkpost. The photographer she was traveling with, Anja Niedringhaus, was killed.
PEACE THROUGH EDUCATION Kabul, the nation’ s capital, was built to accommodate about a half-million people, but is now a sprawling metropolis that 8 million Afghans call home. Traffic is a snarled mess. Beggars tap on car windows at intersections.
Open sewers drain the provisional neighborhoods that have cropped in all directions. Even those who live and work in the“ Ring of Steel,” protected by concrete blast walls, concertina wire, and sandbags, are vulnerable to insurgent attacks.
“ We are thirsty for peace,” Zarmina, a middle-age woman who had just completed CAI-supported literacy program in a southwest Kabul neighborhood, said in August.“ Starting 35 years ago there has been fighting and no peace. Many problems we have in Afghanistan, but the biggest is security. Other problems are joblessness and poverty.”
One of the younger girls in this homebased literacy class, 13-year-old Zainab, said her family had returned to Kabul two years earlier from Iran. She wants to enroll in the government school upon completing the class, but her father, who has a sixth-grade education, will not let her.
“ The only one main source of peace is education,” she said.“ When people know about life and rights, they will no longer fight.”
STUMBLING PROGRESS Awareness of the importance of girls’ education in building a stronger, safer country is growing, albeit in fits and starts. Research has proven that girls’ education is“ a magic multiplier in the development equation,” actress Cate Blanchett and Julia Gillard, Australia’ s first female prime minister, wrote in an op-ed for the Guardian( UK) in September.“ It is an ject to conditions, such as excluding certain subjects( no English for girls, for example) and expanding Islamic subjects in the curriculum, requiring teachers to report to the Taliban, and permitting Taliban to proselytize in the school, they wrote. They install“ informers” in the school and when teachers and / or students refuse to comply with the conditions, Taliban should order school closed and, failing that, attack education staff.
Attacks on school buildings, however, are allegedly banned.“ The Taliban till mostly denied being involved in violent attacks against schools,” instead blaming foreign intelligence agencies, i. e. Pakistan, the authors found.“ This could of course simply be an attempt to scapegoat others for the Taliban’ s most unpopular activities. Despite Taliban claims to the contrary, research in the provinces suggests that some of the attacks against schools and against [ Ministry of Education ] staff have been ordered by the Taliban leadership, or parts thereof, in cases where threats were insufficient to enforce compliance or to close the schools.”
Conditions also include giving two warnings to girls going to school and studying with boys.“ If they don’ t stop going to such classes, they must be killed.”
The recent backtracking and repositioning on whether to permit education, and if so what kind, is largely in response to public rebellions against Taliban demands, David Young reported in foreign Policy. com blogpost. Decisions to close schools, even in some of the most conservative areas of the country,“ was deeply unpopular … and cost the Taliban dearly in terms of popularity,” Young reported. n
— KARIN RONNOW
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starting 35 years ago there has been fighting and no peace. Many problems we have in afghanistan, but the biggest is security. Other problems are joblessness and poverty.”
— Zarmina
attractive proposition: invest in women and girls, and the benefits flow not only to them, but everyone around them, too.”
But translating that into reality is not always easy.
School leaders at CAI-supported Musakhil School in Parwan province are struggling hard to convince parents to send their daughters back to the school and keep them there. Girls’ enrollment started out strong after the school was built in 2010 and turned over to the Afghan government, said headmaster Naqibullah, whose family donated the land. But then the government reduced the number of teachers for the school and insisted that classes be“ combined” boys and girls, which conservative families reject.
“ When elders went and asked Parwan education director for more teachers, he tore the letter in half in front of all elders,” dismissing their request and dishonoring those who had made it, Naqibullah said.“ Government says if community will pay teachers, they’ ll allow.”
In only a year, the number of girls dropped from 134 to 22. But the combined classes weren’ t the only factor.
“ One boy wrote a girl’ s name and something bad about her in the bathroom,” the headmaster said.“ Another girl was engaged but then ran off with another boy. The families said this happened because she was out of home, in school, so they don’ t send their girls to school. Also there is a shortage of textbooks, so students don’ t bring home books. Parents say,‘ Where are the books?’ When we tell them we don’ t have enough, they think we are hiding something. Also we have problem of men teaching, so after class six, those parents won’ t allow for daughters to come to school.
“ For one year I am trying everything and I am tired from that. I donated this land for a girls’ school. I seek all ways to get people to send their daughters back to school. But [ I have ] no success. I am hopeful that new
FA L L 2 0 1 4 Journey of Hope | 19