Oprah’s Angel Network

Three visionaries working to make a difference in Afghanistan—Dr. Sakena Yacoobi, Greg Mortenson and Suraya Sadeed—reflect on the importance of education in the war-torn nation.

Afghan civilians have endured an unending string of wars and conflicts. Outside invaders, feuding tribal factions and religious extremists have made fear and uncertainty a way of life. One of the greatest casualties in this historic tragedy was the elimination of educational opportunities for girls, who were prohibited from going to school by the Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001. A whole generation of girls lost out on what most of us take for granted.

When the Taliban fell, an influx of non-government organizations (NGOs) stepped into the void to help rebuild destroyed schools and get uneducated girls back up to speed. Since 2002, these NGOs, often in concert with the new Afghan government, have rebuilt an estimated 13,000 girls and boys primary and secondary schools, as well as adding hundreds of vocational trade schools and health clinics. Women have also enjoyed a greatly increased presence in the new Afghan parliament, which should ensure the future educational rights of girls.

Security Setbacks

Unfortunately, these strides have been soured by a resurgent Taliban. In November of 2008, 15 girls were splashed with acid on their faces as they walked to the Mirwais School for Girls in Kandahar. Such cruelty symbolizes the Taliban’s recent campaign to discourage girls from going to school. According to a UN report, more than 640 schools have stopped operations, affecting 230,000 children.

In 2002, children learned outside while the reconstruction process began. Today, the educational gains of the last seven years are threatened by increased violence.

Photo courtesy of Help the Afghan Children

To learn more about the current situation in Afghanistan, we sought the expertise of Dr. Sakena Yacoobi, founder of the Afghan Institute of Learning; Suraya Sadeed, founder of Help the Afghan Children; and Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute. All three experts are active in Afghanistan—building schools, educating girls and promoting peace and cross-cultural understanding. All three worked in the region while the Taliban was in power, risking their lives to make a difference.

Below are their excerpted comments about education-related issues in Afghanistan. To read more about each organization, all of which are Angel Network grantees, follow the links at the end of this piece.

Sakena Yacoobi works to empower women through educational, health and vocational programs.

William Vazquez; Maternal Health Initiative via Abbott Fund

Voices from the Field

The educational situation in Afghanistan
Dr. Sakena Yacoobi: Afghan girls have been completely banned from education in the past, so as a result you have children of all ages that did not go to school, especially girls. You have girls right now who are 21-years-old who have never been in a school who don’t know how to read or write. You have 16-year-old girls who are sitting in a class that is at a 2nd- or 4th-grade level.

Greg Mortenson: If you look at a map where our schools are, we focus on isolated pockets where there are no schools or opportunities for girls to get an education. That’s due to three reasons: religious extremism, areas of war and conflict and areas of extreme physical isolation.

The dangers of an education
Suraya Sadeed: Girls are threatened by receiving night letters that say if they continue to go to school, their families will be killed. Female teachers are warned to quit their jobs. We experienced this problem about a year ago. We received night letters, signed by the head of the Taliban movement, who warned us to shut down our school in Kandahar. We ignored it until they killed one of our teachers and threw a grenade to destroy our school.

Greg Mortenson: There are some negative things happening, like the Taliban has destroyed over 550 schools in the last two years in Afghanistan and 350 schools in Pakistan. What’s interesting is that about 80 to 90 percent of those schools are girls’ schools—they’re not boys’ schools. And I think the Taliban’s greatest fear is a not a bullet, but it’s the pen. What they’re really afraid of is that as a girl grows up and gets an education, then the value of education grows in the community and they’ve lost the ability to control society.

Changes after 2001
Dr. Sakena Yacoobi: The life of the Afghan woman has been transformed … Now it’s a situation where we don’t have enough space, enough facilities or enough resources so that all the girls can go to school … We try to empower women and children and give them an awareness of what their rights are. We have provided them classes in women’s rights, human rights, democracy and leadership.

Greg Mortenson: If you go district by district in Afghanistan there have been some really amazing things happening in that country. In Afghanistan in 2000, there were 800,000 kids in school; mostly boys age 5 to 15. Today, eight years later, there are 7.2 million children in school, including 2 million girls. It is the greatest increase in school enrollment in any country in modern history … To me, that is the most inspiring news to come out of the country and nobody in the United States is aware of it.

Suraya Sadeed (center) has promoted computer literacy and peace education through Help the Afghan Children.

Photo courtesy of Help the Afghan Children

On bringing peace to Afghanistan through education
Suraya Sadeed: After working for over 17 years in Afghanistan and building many schools, I am convinced that unless we reintroduce the concept of peace to the new generation, which comprises more than 50 percent of the population, Afghanistan will not embrace peace. I just came back from there after training teachers to implement our advanced peace education program … While we are proud of the schools we built, I believe focusing on the content of what we teach to our students is imperative to at least offset the psychological damages of three decades of war.

On the transformational power of education
Greg Mortenson: I see kids who are very demure, and their heads are down their first day of school. Three years later they really have pride and they’re empowered and they have a real sense of identity. Also, when girls are taught to read and write they often teach their mothers how to read and write. When kids come home from the marketplace they have vegetables and meat wrapped in newspaper. And then you’ll see the mother very carefully unfolding the newspaper, and ask her daughter to read the newspaper to her … Now I hear the mothers say, ‘wrap the vegetables in four layers of newspaper’—I haven’t heard this yet, but there’s going to be one day when they say, ‘and by the way, throw in the editorial page’.

On the misuses of Islam against women’s suffrage
Dr. Sakena Yacoobi: We are also working with men, because it’s the men who are really stopping the women around this issue, to help them understand and analyze the issue and say, ‘you know, here Islam says this and we have women’s rights. We have human rights workshops and we get quotations from the Koran and explain to them that, see, here it says this, and when they see that they are silent.

What Americans need to know about the region
Suraya Sadeed: Americans need to know that democracy can’t flourish in the region unless it is implemented within the context of the culture. A prerequisite for implementing democratic ideas in any country is a middle class population, which currently doesn’t exist in Afghanistan. Americans also need to know that the tribal culture has nothing to do with their religion and that different ethnic groups have different values and outlooks, yet they are unified when it comes to foreigners threatening their ways of life.

Greg Mortenson works closely with tribal leaders to ensure community buy-in for school-building projects.

Photo courtesy of Central Asia Institute

On American military intervention
Dr. Sakena Yacoobi: Right now we have no choice because the situation is so bad. Security is so bad that day to day our lives are in danger … But the soldier should not be here just to fight. I think the more training they give to our own soldiers our people can protect us much better because our own people know the area, culture and tradition. So I think the strategic planning should be changed to provide more security, jobs, housing, water and electricity … when you don’t have electricity it’s like you are dead … And we don’t have water. There is village after village without water.

Greg Mortenson: There’s been what I call a huge learning curve for the military, in that they’re really learning that in order to succeed we need to build relationships and put responsibility on the people themselves. If you go to a small forward operating base two years ago, you would see a matrix that listed all of its assets … if you go there today you’ll see a chart with all the key people (tribal leader, Islamic leaders, government officials) and their primary mandate is to build relationships with these people.

On hopes for the future
Suraya Sadeed: I hope for an Afghanistan in which all children have access to education and health care, to help them mature as individuals who have the will and capability of bringing stability and prosperity to Afghanistan and the world. I hope for an Afghanistan in which women have the right to live free of fear and embrace prosperity.

Dr. Sakena Yacoobi: Hopefully in 10 years the system will be completely different and the leadership will be different. I think that if the leadership is given to women it will be wonderful in Afghanistan because everyone will be able to read and write, every single woman will be empowered. Once women are in power, they are better leaders than, I am sorry to say, a lot of men. For years and years, we have had men leaders and they didn’t accomplish that much. We need security, we need peace in our country and I think women are the ones to bring that to Afghanistan.

Learn more about these grantees:

Afghan Institute of Learning
Central Asia Institute
Help the Afghan Children

Learn more about Afghanistan:

Turquoise Mountain Nonprofit dedicated to promoting Afghan arts and crafts.
Arghand Nonprofit selling Afghan soaps, body oils and silk scarves.
Women for Afghan Women Nonprofit committed to ensuring the human rights of Afghan women.
Aschiana Nonprofit that helps Afghan street children.
Goodrich Foundation Nonprofit building schools in honor of a 9/11 victim.
The Asia Foundation Includes a survey about the conditions in Afghanistan.
The Archipelago of Fear Article describing the conflicted role of some relief efforts in Afghanistan.
Saving Afghanistan A political and military perspective on U.S. involvement in the region.
New York Times Coverage Page featuring recent New York Times articles on Afghanistan.
PBS Map of Ethnic Groups Interactive map highlighting the ethnic regions of Afghanistan.
Ashraf Ghani Profile of a key figure in the rebuilding process of Afghanistan.
Jean MacKenzie Reports from an in-the-field journalist.
Afghan Star Documentary provides insights about a culture in transition.