Historically, Afghanistan Libre got implicated with education since its first steps assuming this as its main objective. Still, it is possible to distinguish among the actions we are leading four type of interventions in Afghanistan:

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Scholarly education

Afghanistan Libre provide assistance in constructing and running primary and secondary schools for girls as well as for schools with the majority of female students. Since 2002, we’ve concentrated our efforts in assisting three public schools: one in the valley of Panjshir and two in the district of Paghman. We also provide assistance to five other public education establishments on the occasional basis with an intention to meet their urgent needs, be it a necessity to dig a well or supply with educational material.

Our working scheme is as follows: we finance the functioning of a school during two or three years before arranging with the Ministry of Education to take over the school management functions. After the takeover, we keep constant contact and close communication with the school and the Ministry in order to assist it, where possible, in the education process. Our aim is to make of a school a sanctuary for Afghan women and girls. Therefore, we integrate other structures, such as health education centers and kindergartens, into the realm of a school as well as support different pupils’ initiatives such an issue of students’ magazines.

Three principal schools supported by Afghanistan Libre:

(click on the name of the school below to learn more about our assistance)

• The secondary school of Malalaï
• The secondary school of Khoja Lakan
• The secondary school of Azrat Osman

Today Afghanistan Libre got involved in a vast program on a three-year basis period sseking to promote more schools for girls. Within the framework of our cooperation with the Foundation Smiling Children and the Foundation UBS Optimus, we are implementing the program “School in a Box” for six schools aiming at becoming models for others. Each year, it is three schools that will be granted this support. It has various components: teachers’ training to ground-breaking teaching methods, training in management for administrative staff of schools, renovation of buildings, distribution of material (educationnal, technical), preparation to the exams for University, scholarships for students, and last but not least sensitizing communities and parents to girls’ education (read more on the program).

Sanitary education

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We care about the provision of quality information on personal health and hygiene issues in public schools of Afghanistan. Therefore, we’ve established a sick room and a health education center in each of the school we are supporting. We are contracting health educators in all those centers as to give mothers and students year-long training about basic sanitary care.

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Professional training

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We’ve supported the organization of professional trainings to teachers the majority of whom in Afghanistan only have obtained secondary education. In 2009-2010, in the framework of the project Daremalemin (named after the Teachers’ Education Centre – TEC), Afghanistan Libre has provided two buses for the transportation of about 120 teachers to the TEC.

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Our Kindergatens

The project, its goals and beneficiaries

The principal goal is to offer female teachers a possibility to leave their children attended and taken care of while they are exercising their profession.

Moreover, hereby we seek to prepare these children to entry a school, to create a friendly environment for their development and, finally, to form and transmit a positive image of a woman working in school, for her children and the others.

The framework of the project

Two kindergartens that we’ve established in the schools of Malalaï (Panjshir) and Azrat Osman (Paghman) regularly welcome 12 and 22 children respectively (2010) allowing their mothers to give classes and alleviating them from worries about the day-care. Children are attended all day long according to their mothers’ working hours.

Upon the demand of female teachers at the school of Poshta of the Paghman region, Afghanistan Libre has decided to open the third kindergarten, this time destined not only to teachers’ kids, but to all children of the local village. In 2010, it regularly took care of 12 teachers’ and 25 local kids. This success has encouraged us to study the reasons of this kindergarten’s popularity and we wish to apply the model in other regions.

We’ve recruited kindergarten’s managers and childminders, depending on the number of children enrolled, who all come from local communities. They’ve received a training, necessary material and allowances letting them provide the children with one meal a day.

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