STUDENTS DREAM of a BRIGHTER FUTURE
Theme
Education, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), Education in Emergencies (EiE), Community-Based Education (CBE)
Story summary
Save the Children and the Citizen Organization for Advocacy and Resilience (CoAR) are working in partnership to provide educational opportunities for vulnerable children in Kunduz Center, Qala-e-zal, Ali Abad, Dasht-e Archi, Imam Sahib, and Chahardara Districts of Kunduz Province in Afghanistan. The program provides Community Based Education (CBE) to children who have been internally displaced, those who are returning from countries, and those who live in the province and struggle to access regular schooling. *Saifullah, an 11-year-old boy, is one of the dozens of children attending the project’s learning spaces and benefitting from access to high-quality, inclusive education.
Main story
Tahiry village is part of the Aliabad district of Kunduz province. More than 600 families reside in this village. The people living in this village don’t have access to public schools, with the nearest one being 7 KM away. The families had lots of concerns regarding the education of their children in this village before the establishment of SCI’s CBE classes in the village. Unfortunately, some of their children grew up illiterate due to the lack of access to education. The children are now just working on local farms instead of being at school learning.
Currently, Taheri village has 3 CBE classes, which were established by SCI under the ECW project in 2018-2019, the classes were handed over to COAR at the beginning of 2022, and running by COAR-ECW, the 1st class has 35 students all of them are girls and the 2nd and 3rd classes are mixed of girls and boys( 33 girls and 35 boys), Among the 3 classes of Taheri village, 2 classes are in the 4th grade and one class is in the 3rd grade, and the students are between the ages of 12 –-14 year.
When Save the Children established 3 Community Based Education classes in Tahiry village, people started to have hope that their children could access education.
Local families started to try and attract other organizations’ attention, advocating for them to establish even more classes for their children, where now there are several CBE classes in the village. They now hope to have a public school established for their children to permanently enable their children to access education. The majority of the children in the village are enrolled and participating in the CBE classes.
The people of the village said, “We are thankful to SCI and COAR for establishing CBE classes in our village, which enabled our children to go to school and hope for their bright future, and we are thankful for the teachers who are tirelessly teaching our children”.
“The villagers are also thankful to SCI and COAR for the establishment and support of the classes which caused to encourage the people for sending their children especially the girls to the CBE classes and all of the people understand the value and importance of education of the children.”
One of the teachers from the CBE class shared the following feedback with us.
“I am thankful to SCI and COAR for establishing CBE classes in this village where there was no access to schooling, and also enhanced the knowledge and skills of teachers by providing comprehensive training.
When I was appointed as a teacher in this village, I didn’t have enough knowledge and experience regarding child protection, child safeguarding, pedagogy, and ACR, when I received these training, dramatically I felt very positive changes in my skills, and it changed my behavior toward the students accordingly.
Since then, I have been observing all of the rules and regulations in this context, and the result is also great.”
The students of the class say that “we are very happy from SCI and COAR for establishing our CBE class, and from our teacher regarding his efforts and hard work in teaching us. Before establishing CBE classes we had no access to education, and we had lost hope for our bright future, but now we are very happy from SCI and COAR for providing us with such a service. This is why we are going to class and learning our lessons enthusiastically. Besides, our attitude and behavior have also changed positively like; we know how to respect our elders, members of the family, and even respect each other inside of the class and in the society”.
