{ and personnel . Today we run effectively and efficiently ; meeting or exceeding national and international nonprofit standards .” Those changes include : � CAI worked with the Montana attorney general ’ s ( AG ) office to review and reinforce financial and project accounting , monitoring , oversight , systems and processes .
� Annual independent audits and international operations reviews have all been completed . Expenses were reviewed back to 2006 . The AG has recently acknowledged to several charity watchdogs that CAI is in full compliance , although its office will continue oversight through April 2015 .
� CAI replaced its former board of directors , welcoming eight new volunteer members with an array of professional skills and passion for the cause . It continues to seek new independent board members .
� CAI reinforced its management team with several new domestic and international professionals , all with excellent credentials and experience .
� With the help of outside advisors , CAI staff and board worked together to meld the organization ’ s values , vision , mission , and strategies into an integrated business plan and longer-term strategic plan .
� CAI restructured Mortenson ’ s role . No longer directly involved in governance , management or finances , he is free to build upon his experience and extensive network of relationships to champion new program development , communications , and fundraising .
“ Today , CAI passes the acid test ,” Thaden said . “ We have made solid operating improvements , satisfied the inquiries of the courts and numerous government agencies , and had multiple years of successful independent audits and IRS filings .
“ CAI did get mud on its boots . Working at the forefront of change in difficult and often dangerous circumstances , people and organizations sometimes stumble . The important thing is to learn from your mistakes , consolidate your gains , get up , dust off and keeping going . I ’ m proud of our staff and partners . We have a strong staff here supporting experienced , reliable working partners overseas .”
WORK CONTINUES Experience matters . Empowering impoverished , isolated and neglected mountain communities through education takes patience . It takes perseverance . And it requires empathy and hope . Add war , extremism , political turmoil , government corruption , narcotics trafficking , and misogynistic cultures and it ’ s no wonder the rest of the world despairs of things ever changing .
“ Talk to anyone about this part of the world and there is a sense that it is hopeless ,” said CAI Board Member George McCown . “ The international community has spent all this money , but for what ? Well , there is some good stuff going on there . And we ’ re doing it .”
Throughout this period of enormous change internally and in the countries where we work , CAI has continued to maintain its schools , build new schools , and sustain and expand programs overseas , Thaden said .
One of CAI ’ s most recent endeavors was construction and support of four schools in Tajikistan ’ s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast ( GBAO ). Although separated from Afghanistan and Pakistan by political boundaries and a vastly different 20th century experience as part of the Soviet Union , GBAO
“ CAI did get mud on its boots . Working at the forefront of change in difficult and often dangerous circumstances , people and organizations sometimes stumble . The important thing is to learn from your mistakes , consolidate your gains , get up , dust off and keep going .”
— Jim Thaden , CAI Executive Director shares many of the same problems : poverty , isolation , discrimination , and neglect .
Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet-bloc countries . Its education infrastructure is crumbling and the government has not reinvested in school buildings , teacher training , or equal access to higher education . The result is the first generation of young Tajiks with less education than their parents .
CAI worked with GBAO education officials to select four villages in need of new school buildings : Zhymag , Kona Kurgan , Langhar , and Vanqala .
Zhymag is at the end of a dirt road that follows the Yazghularm River up into the mountains . It ’ s a pastoral village , filled with fruit trees and tidy white houses with the traditional Tajik-blue trim . Its school was damaged in a 2010 earthquake . Although the building was cracked and crumbing , the villagers had no choice but to keep using it ; the government wasn ’ t offering repairs and the villagers didn ’ t have the money . Yet they know education is key to building a better future .
Zhymag ’ s school administrators also hope the new 10-classroom building will help with retention of female students . Of 302 students , 147 are girls , School Director Mibishoyev Akobirsho said , but only a handful make it to graduation .
In Tajikistan , “ Enrollment and attendance rates at primary school ( grades 1-4 ) are very high for both sexes , but by grade nine , roughly one-fourth of girls no longer attend school ,” according to a UNICEF country report .
But it ’ s a fact that for every year a girl stays in school her odds for a better life increase .
The students say the new building is “ fresh .” “ There ’ s lots of light ,” one girl said . “ It ’ s not so crowded ,” another said .
“ Now girls have seen the new building and want to stay for higher classes ,” said Imomuddin Subzalievish , a retired brigadier who helps with school .
Rokia has made it to 11 class and now hopes to go on to medical school . “ I want to be a doctor and do service for my people ,” she said . “ There is no doctor in our village . I would go to Dushanbe and come back to be a doctor here .”
Medical training involves three years of college , followed by six years of university . Where the money will come from , she ’ s not sure . The cost of education in Tajikistan keeps rising as the government shifts payment to students and their families .
But Akobirsho is optimistic that the
4 | Journey of Hope C E N T R A L A S I A I N S T I T U T E