Project Documentation

Global Giving / Global Philanthropy Forum Innovation Marketplace

Nomination – Sakena Yacoobi, Afghan Institute of Learning

January 14, 2005

  1. Historical Overview of the Afghan Institute of Learning’s Women’s Learning Centers (2)

Services of the WLCs (3)

Expansion of WLCs to Conservative, Rural Communities (4)

in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004

Support for Grassroots Community-Based Organizations (5)

Student Feedback (5)

  1. Overview of THE AFGHAN INSTITUTE OF LEARNING (7)

Major Accomplishments of AIL Since 1995 (8)

(a) Teacher Training (8)

(b) Human Rights and Leadership (8)

(c) Home Schools (9)

(d) Women’s Learning Centers (9)

(e) Health Programs (9)

(f) School Support, Advanced Classes, and Pre-schools (9)

(g) Afghan Women’s University(10)

(h) Support for Community-Based Organizations(10)

(i) Voice of Education Magazine(10)

AIL Main Activities and Services(11)

I. Historical Overview of the Afghan Institute of Learning’s Women’s Learning Centers

The Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) was the first NGO to start Women’s Learning Centers (WLCs) in refugee camps in Pakistan in 2002. Requested by the women in the camps, the WLCs are designed to meet the multiple needs of Afghan women and children. WLCs train teachers, provide health care and health education, and offer preschool through university classes. Workshops that train women to be leaders and to advocate for their basic human rights are offered in the WLCs. Women also learn income generating skills like sewing and carpet weaving.

Afghan women are eager to return to school after years of having no opportunity to learn because of war and the brutal Taliban regime. After years of war, the literacy rate of Afghan females is among the lowest in the world. Widows and poor women wish to become literate. Older girls, who were prevented from attending school, want to learn on an accelerated basis and study with girls their own age. Women, who were forced to marry young and stop their schooling want to finish their education. In response to these needs, WLCs offer women and girls Fast Track classes that allow them to study on an accelerated basis to complete grade certificates, learn subjects like English and computers in enrichment classes, and/or learn basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Some younger girls study in fast track programs, complete grade certificates within a few months, and mainstream into public school at a grade level appropriate for their ages.

When the first WLCs opened in Pakistan and began providing education and health services, word about the success of the programs spread quickly. Soon, AIL was showered with requests from other communities for their own WLCs. AIL now has eighteen Women’s Learning Centers, where there were none in December of 2001. One of the striking impacts of AIL’s work with Women’s Learning Centers is that this model of providing health and educational services to women has been successfully expanded to hard-to-reach rural areas in provincial Herat, Parwan, and Kabul (e.g. Sar Asia, Lolenge, Shakardara) at the request of those communities. Many of these rural communities have historically been resistant to women’s and girls’ education but through AIL’s principles of community involvement and cultural sensitivity, the organization has been able to reach women in these communities with urgently needed services. In fact, AIL continues to receive requests for services from other rural communities who have learned about the quality of AIL’s work with women and girls. AIL is working hard to meet this demand.

AIL develops new WLCs with program sustainability in mind. First WLCs are started only when a community has requested them and is involved in the project. Community contributions and input are encouraged. As a result, communities contribute a substantial portion of the materials needed to begin a new WLC. These contributions come in the form of donated space and supplies. They also include volunteer time and assistance with security. AIL hires and trains women from the local community to staff and manage the WLC. This practice is an important part of sustaining the WLC because it ensures that local people have the skills and knowledge to continue programs independently in the future. In some cases, fees are charged to WLC students and patients who can afford them. Additionally, some WLCs have begun programs like tailoring, carpet weaving, and art classes which generate small amounts of income to support programs from the sale of products. AIL believes that ultimately Afghans will be able to support all of their own health and education needs by using these strategies.

Services of the WLCs

WLCs are comprehensive service centers developed in conjunction with local community members and designed to meet the multiple needs of Afghan women and children. Classes, training, and health programs offered at WLCs are decided by local women and communities. When AIL has a new program to offer, AIL invites a community to begin offering the service at their WLC but never imposes a new class or new training on a community. AIL has a strong reputation for providing quality services, respecting local traditions and culture, keeping women safe, and responding swiftly to needs as they are stated by community members. Because of AIL’s reputation, communities have been open to trying out new services they had not previously considered. AIL has been able to introduce some services for women that are truly revolutionary for Afghan villages like family planning education and services, reproductive health education, co-educational classes, women educating men, women working outside the home, and women’s human rights education. Through services like these, AIL is setting a standard for gender equality in Afghanistan.

Through its Women’s Learning Centers, AIL reaches over 350,000 Afghans each year with urgently needed health and education services. WLCs offer a vast array of educational opportunities including literacy, fast track, calligraphy, drawing, math, Pushto, English, Dari, sewing, needlework, carpet weaving, craft-making, bead knitting, computer, Arabic, health, social science, science, logic, psychology, pre-school, and art.WLCs provide out-of-school education to women and girls. These centers are the only educational option for women and older girls who are not allowed into government school because of their age or because they are married. Younger students often take classes in the WLCs before or after regular school hours. Some of these students are not able to attend school during the regular school day because of employment obligations. Other students attend government schools and AIL’s WLCs because they find they learn more easily when taught using the interactive teaching methods that AIL teachers use.

WLCs also provide human rights and leadership training to Afghan women that teach women about their rights and how to assert their rights in a culturally sensitive way. Women also learn to recognize their leadership potential and to become leaders within their families, communities, and country. Over 1,000 women have received this training to date. Some WLCs have computer labs, which offer general and intensive classes to over 200 students each year. Computer classes teach students basic computer skills as well as Windows, Word, Excel, and Access. Afghans, especially women and girls, have a strong interest in learning computers and continue to request more classes and labs.

AIL’s WLCs house their acclaimed pre-school programs through which they train professional kindergarten teachers to teach 19 curricular topics interactively and at age-appropriate levels. Pre-schools also use innovative methods to engage parents in school activities and their children’s learning, a new concept for Afghans. AIL’s Pre-school Education Program serves about 375 children a year.

Through the 18 WLCs, AIL provides lifesaving health care services including exams, vaccinations, and treatment. AIL reached over 90,000 people, mostly Afghan women and children, with health services in 2004. Additionally, AIL provided over 146,000 women and children with health education on important health topics like disease prevention, hygiene, childcare, nutrition, family planning, vaccinations, and reproductive health. Health education is provided in as a part of health services, in WLC classes, and through two hour workshops. AIL’s health program emphasizes maternal and child health. In rural Kabul province, AIL started a nutrition clinicthrough its WLC that serves hundreds of undernourished children, at the request of that community. AIL’s health staff provide pre- and post-natal care to hundreds of women each month and deliver babies.

Expansion of WLCs to Conservative, Rural Communities in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004

At the request of rural communities, AIL WLCs have been established in many rural villages in Kabul and Herat provinces at the request of those communities during 2003 and 2004. At the request of and in partnership with the villages of Mir Bacha Kot, AIL established Women’s Learning Centers in this community during 2003. These WLCs, located in Mir Bacha Kot, Shaikhan, Bala Aaab, and Baba Quchqar, provided a mobile health clinic, home schools for girls and boys, advanced classes for boys, and literacy and sewing classes for women and girls in addition to sewing and literacy classes. By the beginning of 2004, AIL had established a permanent health clinic in Mir Bacha Kot. Villages nearby noticed the success of these programs and asked AIL to begin WLCs for them. Working together with these villages, AIL started WLCs in Shakardara, Karenda, Kalikhan, and Kariz Mir in 2004.

AIL established WLCs in the villages of Jaghartun, Sar Asia,and Darb-e-Iraq in Herat province at the request of those communities during 2003. Hundreds of women and girls in these communities who have historically had no access to education are taking advantage of these exciting new opportunities to learn. The Herat WLCs provide an array of services including healthcare, literacy, sewing, English, and enrichment classes. The village of Jabre’el noticed the success of these WLCs and requested one of their own. AIL partnered with Jabre’el to begin this WLC in 2004.

Support for Grassroots Community-Based Organizations

Because of the success of its Women’s Learning Centers, AIL began a new program to help other Afghan-led community-based organizations (CBOs) to improve their services and to manage their organizations efficiently and professionally. AIL’s grassroots CBO support project is dedicated to creating high-quality, sustainable, Afghan civil society organizations to advance education and health in Afghanistan. Since AIL began supporting one local, grassroots NGO in Kabul, called Behzad Educational Center, enrollment in classes has doubled, female enrollment has quadrupled, teachers have received training, and program quality has improved.

During 2004, a woman decided to open an educational center especially designed to meet the educational needs of girls. She said that she had the idea for the center but did not know how to implement her idea until after she took an AIL leadership workshop. She opened this center with the support of AIL during the summer of 2004 and it is now serving 800 students.

Also during 2004, AIL began supporting a grassroots educational center in Lolenge, ParwanProvince. The people in this community had heard about AIL’s successful WLC programs with refugees in Pakistan and traveled a great distance to visit AIL’s office in Kabul to ask for help with their education program in Parwan. This isolated community is populated mostly with Hazaras, an Afghan ethnic minority, and serves 122 students.

Student Feedback

AIL has been overwhelmed with the positive response from students, parents, and community members about the WLCs, classes, and services. Below, some of this feedback has been translated:

“I am a 16 year old girl. I used to be a thirdgrade literacy student in AIL WLC. I wished to join school. After I took the exam in a school in Kabul city, I passed the test. I was accepted as a fifth grade student in that school. I can’t express the feelings that I had at the moment when I heard I passed the test. I am very thankful to AIL for it was AIL who motivated me (an illiterate girl) to become a fifth grade student. We can make a great example of AIL for its great management, discipline, and hard work. I can doubtlessly say that none of the other educational centers can challenge AIL.”

“We learned many useful matters in this course which helped us take a promoted test and join school. This course helped us not only to complete the years of our schooling but also it provided us much more useful advice about the harms of narcotic drugs, saving our money, etc. Before we used to take money from our parents making different excuses and spend it on useless things. But now we spend our money, as we were advised in this course, on books and notebooks. We wish AIL would expand its educational programs in all villages of Mir Bacha Kot district, so that everyone (male and female) has access to education. We are thankful to AIL for its services.”

“The biggest help and facilitating resource for the people, especially the women of this village, is the establishment of the clinic in Shaikhan, where there was no clinic. We had difficulty traveling to cities for check ups. The people of this village are thankful to AIL for its services.”

“Computers are a resource to join the international community and take part in international affairs. We need to learn modern technology and techniques for taking part in the reconstruction of our country. We want to go ahead in companionship with other promoted people of the world. So I want to thank AIL for making it possible for us to learn computers free of charge. There are lots of computer courses in Kabul city but I prefer this institute because of the facilities provided for females here. After finishing this course, we will be able to be self-reliant and work in an organization.”

“By learning mathematics, now we are able to calculate our daily expenses, control our budget, and save our money, which is very important for organized living. It is all due to AIL’s hard work and care for Afghan women.”

“AIL’s sewing course is the best and none other can challenge it. There are some good points in this center that attract the students’ interest and attention and I would like to shed some light on these good points. In AIL sewing class, they have a lesson plan, the teachers have a kind attitude, and the teacher controls the lesson and the class. The Islamic veil is observed and the whole AIL office has good management, security and discipline. The environment is peaceful where the employer, employees and learners are female.”

“AIL’s hard work and good faith is worthy of praise. If the whole oceans of the world turn into ink and the leaves of the trees turn into papers, they won’t be enough to write the efforts and good points of AIL.”

II. Overview of THE AFGHAN INSTITUTE OF LEARNING

The Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) is an Afghan women’s non-governmental organization (NGO) which was founded in 1995 in Pakistan by Professor Sakena Yacoobi to assist Afghan women and children. AIL presently has offices in Kabul and Herat, Afghanistan and in Peshawar, Pakistan. AIL is a registered NGO with both the Pakistani and Afghan governments. AIL serves 350,000 women and children annually, is run entirely by women and employs 470 Afghans, 83% of whom are women. AIL has been project partner with Creating Hope International (CHI) (a 501 c 3 non-profit in the U.S.) since 1996. Through a long-term technical assistance agreement, CHI provides advice, training, financial management, and fund-raising assistance and acts as fiscal sponsor for AIL upon request.

AIL believes that educated people are the key to a future, developed Afghanistan. With that in mind, AIL works to empower all Afghans who are needy and oppressed by expanding their educational and health opportunities and by fostering self-reliance and community participation. AIL’s goals are to lay a foundation for quality education and health for years to come and to provide comprehensive education and health services to Afghan women and children, so that they can support and take care of themselves, by:

  • Providing quality educational opportunities through preschools, primary and secondary schools, enrichment classes, literacy classes, income-generation training, computer training, a newly opened university and Women’s Learning Centers (21,000 students served in 2003)
  • Training teachers and teacher trainers, health educators, vaccinators, nurses and other health professionals (over 9,000 trained to date)
  • Providing human rights and leadership training (900 women trained) and Women’s Learning Centers (presently 18 centers) for Afghan women
  • Developing training seminars and workshops (11 seminars and 30 workshops developed to date)
  • Providing health education and basic health services to women and children (12,000 women and children presently being served monthly in its health clinics)

AIL seeks to achieve its goals by providing education and health programs, training the leaders of the education and health programs and working with the communities it serves. AIL believes that, one day, Afghans will be able to completely support all of their education and health needs by utilizing these strategies.