Afghanistan is said to be the most dangerous country in the world for females, and schoolgirls have been at risk. Seventy percent of Afghan girls are not in school. A girl may be out of school because their is no school where she lives, because it is unsafe for her to walk to school, because the teacher is a man, or because the family does not want her in a public school. And practically the whole generation of young women who grew up under the Taliban is unschooled. Now they are too old to enter the first grade--and would be headed for a life of illiteracy.
Community Schools
Compassion Beyond Borders has founded a primary school with its partner, Afghan Women Service & Education Organization (AWSE), that now educates 1,000 girls and young women--and is rapidly growing. It's not an ordinary school, for it has no school building. Rather, a system of classrooms has been organized in 32 communities that do not have schools for girls.
The classrooms are founded only after approval has been received from the town council, neighborhood elders and local mullahs. They are in Kabul and two other provinces, some in communities under Taliban domination. Classes are organized in keeping with the Afghan culture, which is presumably why the Taliban has given them their OK, even as they close down other schools in the same area. And yet, women's and children's rights and health care are taught in CBB's classes in addition to an academic education.
CBB's classes are intense--six days a week, 52 weeks a year. Two years of public school are taught in one year. The teachers are well qualified, with an average of 12 years of education--the standard for teaching in the developing world. Some teachers teach in a public school in the morning and in CBB's classes in the afternoon, or vice-versa.
CBB's classes have an average of 30 students--not large for the developing world. Most girls are between 6 and 16 years of age, although some classes are reserved for women as old as 50 years of age, many of whom are married.
The cost of educating a girl for three years, the equivalent of a six year primary school education in Afghanistan, is an amazingly low $125 for her entire education!
Education for girls in a Women's Shelter
CBB funds adult education for girls and women in the Shelter of the Family Guidance Center in Kabul, where 45 girls and women reside with their children. The shelter is a “safe house” in which the girls and women are protected for two weeks to two years while waiting for a resolution of the violence in their families.
Since 85% of women in Afghanistan cannot read or write, and the girls in the shelter are unable to leave, even to go to school, these classes enable them to make good use of their time in the shelter. The annual cost of this education, which includes health care training, is $4,500
