TOILET BEFORE AND AFTER
In most of the world, a working toilet at school is taken for granted. In the Pamirs, it can determine whether a child attends at all. Before the renovation, School # 7 had no adequate facilities for its youngest students. In winter, children at the ECD center had to leave the building and cross snow and sub-zero cold to reach outdoor toilets.
In 2025, CAI completed new indoor and outdoor sanitation facilities at School # 7, giving the ECD children a safe, warm option inside the building and older students far better conditions outside. Similar construction is now underway at School # 8.“ Before the indoor toilets were available, some parents were reluctant to bring their small children to the ECD center during the winter. The children had to go outside in heavy snow and very cold weather," Qurbonalieva says. " Now, the ECD children have a warm, safe, comfortable toilet facility inside the building, and the outdoor toilet gives older students much better sanitation than before. Together with the renovated classrooms, these improvements have created a healthier, cleaner, more welcoming school environment."
BEFORE
THE FUTURE AHEAD
A school is far more than four walls and a roof. It is where children discover what they are capable of, make their first friends, and begin to imagine a future. Its condition touches everything from attendance and concentration to health and academic success. In the Pamirs, where journeys are long and resources are limited, these improvements can make all the difference. A renovated classroom, a warm school building, and a clean toilet may seem like small things. Yet they shape how children experience school every day.
That belief has long guided CAI ' s work: that every child deserves a safe, welcoming place to learn. At Schools # 7 and # 8, that vision is taking shape not through grand gestures, but through practical improvements that help students focus on what matters most: learning.
AFTER
Outdoor toilets before and after of school # 7 in Sokhcharv Village
The Pamir Mountain Range of Tajikistan
16 | 2026-2027 JOURNEY OF HOPE
CENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTE