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THE POWER
OF EDUCATIONAL TV IN A SOCIETY STRUGGLING WITH LITERACY
by Mina Sharifi
Children are loved and looked at differently than adults almost everywhere around the world. They share some beautiful common traits that remind adults of better times. They explore ideas with so much imagination and see endless possibility in the world. They’ re nurtured and loved. This period of time is called childhood. But, in Afghanistan, childhood exists for a very short window of time, and that’ s for girls or boys who are lucky enough to experience it at all. Children in Afghanistan grow up quickly and deal with trauma I still can barely even imagine. They are really like mini adults, just steps away from decision-making time and adulthood.
With over 70 percent of the Afghan population under the age of 25, there is a lot weighing on the shoulders of the children. Often they live in poverty. They begin working before they are even teenagers. Frequently, they are on the streets earning minimal money shining shoes or working hard in labor-intensive jobs that stunt their growth.
Those girls and boys who have the means to go to school are lucky. But they too have a lot of emotional challenges in a country like Afghanistan. Are they going to be one of the inspirational stories? One of the children who get accepted to great schools, and who become pillars of their communities? Or are they going to eventually give in to the temptation of anger, hurt, and frustration like so many before them?
As a country, Afghanistan, in small but effective increments, is making changes to steer children in the right direction. I am lucky enough to be a part of that movement.
I first arrived in Kabul in 2005. Though I had grown up outside of the country, in Canada, and was surprised by a lot of things I found in Afghanistan, I was not caught off guard by how children were approached. I grew up knowing from my parents that Afghan kids were lectured to in school, not participating members of open conversations like I was used to. My teachers had affectionately referred to me as a chatterbox, and praised my questions. This didn’ t make sense to anyone who had grown up in Kabul. Instead, they were praised for being quiet, listening carefully, and not saying much. I was shocked to hear kids were
ranked in class and that everyone knew each other’ s ranking. To me, it sounded like they weren’ t children and were just mini adults in training.
I didn’ t work with children right away when I arrived in Afghanistan. Rather, it happened organically as I realized not only did I find children the least stressful group to support, but I also had the potential to make a different kind of impact with them— preventative, immediate, and positive. Over the span of a decade, working with children took over as my greatest passion.
In the beginning, I was working with a private media company and, as we created our ads and messaging, we realized there was a major gap in the target audience groups. We were writing public-service announcements cautioning people about improvised explosive devices, which are a huge problem in Afghanistan. Many people, of all ages, encounter them unexpectedly and are injured or killed. Yet, the ads we were making addressed only adults. Maybe others were creating children’ s content, but we decided to push for it as well. We created an animated ad that showed children reporting anything suspicious to their elders. It was a huge hit with the government ministries we
24 | JOURNEY OF HOPE CENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTE