The aim of the non-profit organisation registered in Germany under the name of Afghanistan-Schulen – Verein zur Unterstützung von Schulen in Afghanistan e.V., (in short: Afghanistan-Schulen) is to support education for Afghan girls and boys from nursery school to university as well as vocational training. Due to war and unrest, most schools are either destroyed or dam-aged. Furthermore, many villages never had a school in the past. In order to work effectively, we concentrate our efforts in the North of Afghanistan. We consider our projects as help for self help. We work closely together with the people in the towns and villages. Our partners suggest the projects and together we try to implement them in a culturally acceptable way.
1983 during a holiday together with her daughters, Ursula Nölle saw the suffering in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. Because of her daughter's knowledge of Dari, they managed to get in direct touch with the people in a camp where first schools were being set up. Ursula Nölle's first project was a girls' school, a project which was especially important as girls don't have many chances to be educated. In the following years, many more schools were set up in the camps.
Immediately after the withdrawal of the soviet troops in the north in 1988, people who knew the committee from the refugee camps asked for help to rebuild the schools in their home villages. In the following years, more projects were implemented in this area. In 2002 the office of the partner organization VUSAF moved from Peshawar/Pakistan to Kabul. In Afghanistan (Kunar, Samangan, Balkh and the four northern districts of Faryab), until the end of 2011 we had built 42 new schools and eight additional school buildings and repaired 12 others.
In order to supply drinking water for the school children, the committee finances the construc-tion of water reservoirs and the digging of wells.
In Andkhoi and the surrounding villages in the four northern districts of the province of Faryab in the Northwest of Afghanistan (approx. 200.000 inhabitants), the committee continues to sup-port the schools, especially with the construction of classrooms and water reservoirs, the dig-ging of wells, the supply of school furniture and through the small projects funds which enables the schools to implement projects themselves.
However, there are still deficits in the state education system, especially because of the need to improve teacher training. Therefore, we have set up an Education Centre (EC). Young peo-ple who aim to study at university can revise here all school subjects from grade 10. For stu-dents of grades 7 to 9 we offer courses in mathematics and languages (Pashtoo, Dari and Eng-lish). Furthermore, there are additional English courses and computer training. In the workshop of the EC grounds, young men are trained to become electricians (previously we trained car-penters).
Furthermore, there are some cultural activities in the form of calligraphy and painting courses and competitions in poetry and quizzes. From time to time girls and women meet here for spe-cial activities. The EC's library has a good supply of books in Dari and English.
In private homes, three-year courses are offered for older girls and women who want to try to catch up with lessons missed during the Taliban rule. After a three-year training period, some of them join state schools from grade 7. For young women in the villages, we offer one year courses in which they study reading, writing and arithmetic three days/week and on the other three days they are learning to sew. Additionally, they are trained in health subjects for mother and child. After conclusion of the course they can keep the sewing machine enabling them to earn money by making dresses for women and children.
Teachers like all state employees still get a fairly low salary which now amounts to 120 to 280 USD in rural areas. However, at least 330 USD are needed to support a family of 8. To provide another source of income for the families, we supplied 320 households with chickens. One fe-male family member was trained in keeping chickens and shown how to build shelters and feeding utensils. We have been told that the families could not only supply their family's needs but also earn at least 50 USD per months from the sale of eggs. We hope to continue such help.
Much has been achieved, but there is still lots more to be done!
Approx. 40 % of the schools still do not have a proper building, but children are taught in ruins, tents or in the open, other schools are growing and new additional classrooms, and also there are still deficits in the quality of teaching. Therefore, if our donors - maybe you? - continue to support us, we are willing to continue our efforts in constructing new school buildings and in running courses to help improve the education.
Afghanistan-Schulen is supported by private persons, schools, churches, foundations and some companies and receives public funding from the German Foreign Office and the Ministry for International Cooperation and Development and a lottery of the State of Schleswig-Holstein.
All members of Afghanistan-Schulen in Germany are volunteers. Only because of this, it is possible to keep the administration costs low (around 4 %). Twice a year members of the board and of the working circle visit the projects in Afghanistan at their own costs. In Kabul, the part-ner organization VUSAF has an office which coordinates the projects in Northern Afghanistan.
How can you help?
• by working for the committee as member
• by donations as a supportive member
• by financial support of the projects, i.e. asking for donations instead of birthday presents
• by organizing school partnerships
• by encouraging others to support our projects.
Marga Flader and Ingrid Fraser report from their trip to Afghanistan in October 2011
Dear Friends
This time it was not easy for us to make the decision to go and see the projects in Afghanistan or not because the unrest in September had worried our colleagues in Kabul, Mazar and Andkhoi very much. The prospects of talks with them and our students however, motivated us to fly and now we can look back on a successful visit. However, it was overshadowed by insecurity. Only visits which were absolutely necessary were made – no outings like those we still enjoyed last spring were possible. Instead we had many discussions in which our colleagues also talked about their worries. Not only regarding security but also the drought and the rising prices are worrying them. The crop this year in the Andkhoi area was a total loss. Meanwhile, we are glad that Misereor has granted us funds so that all school employees will get food aid in form of 50 kg flour, 20 kg rice and 5 l oil to help them through the winter. The World Food Program is supplying aid to other people in need in the province of Faryab.
In Mazar-e-Sharif we could move about quite freely, but of course always accompanied by our Afghan col-leagues. However, during our workshop in Kabul quite close to our office a suicide attacker killed 19 people. The relatives of our colleagues called during our meeting to find out if their loved ones were ok.
In Mazar-e-Sharif:
We visited those schools for which we had constructed buildings during the recent years. For the girls of Nahr-e-Top we had brought letters from a school in Hamburg. Maqsadullah Shaheed, an excellent school, had built a laboratory without any help in which every day three or four classes conduct their lessons. With the financial help of our Small Projects Scheme they hope to pave the way from the entrance to the school build-ing and the toilets so that the buildings can be kept clean. We aim to keep in touch with "our" schools and, therefore, give them the chance to obtain 100.000 Afghanis (equalling 2.000 USD) to implement their own projects if they contribute in about the same way. With the help of the Small Projects Scheme, the state schools constructed store rooms, classrooms, toilets and repairs have been carried out.
After a meeting with the head of education of the province of Balkh, we were also during this trip led to a school which would like us to construct a building for them. The children were sitting in the ruins of a small house in the basement, in the ground and upper floors without windows or doors; the back wall of one of the rooms on the upper floor had collapsed: it was completely gone! In the biggest room – long and narrow – two classes with 50 students each sitting on the floor were taught at the same time. On the day of our visit only about half of the students were present because of a bad sandstorm – the sky, the boundary walls and the ground – everything was the same sandy colour; the sand was especially irritating for the eyes. In this new district refugees and people are settling who are leaving their villages because of the drought and who are now in search of jobs. We did not see a single bit of green – no tree, no shrubs.
We met students from Andkhoi who study at different faculties of the University of Balkh. We support these young men financially by helping them pay the rent. Young women from Andkhoi who found a place to stay at a students' hostel also receive a small financial contribution from us. The accommodation was shockingly simple (one small room for five men in which they sleep, cook, eat and study – no kitchen, no bathroom). They hardly have any money for food; in the morning and at lunchtime they eat bread and in the evening maybe beans. If they are lucky enough, there is money to return home at the end of the semester.
Samia, the daughter of our regional director who was murdered in February 2007, accompanied us from Kabul to Mazar. She had been to Germany this summer for medical treatment. While she was here, she joined one of our colleagues and gathered some experience in a nursery school. It is our aim to pass on some ideas to the teachers of the nursery school in the Khodja Abdullah Ansari School (Choghdak). The teachers at the nursery school were very happy about what Samia showed them.
In Andkhoi:
We visited two of the three schools which were constructed this year. Qahar Khan, our construction manager in Andkhoi, likes to see our reaction when we look at the good work what he and his workers accomplished since our last visit. As always, it makes us very happy to see the boys and girls now in their beautiful new school building. The 10 projects which we carry out with the state schools in this region with funds from our Small Project Scheme are a great success; among others two schools were repaired and painted inside and out (all buildings and boundary walls).
In the district of Khancharbagh we were taken to another possible new project: In former stables without win-dows children are sitting on the floor or three or four in a bench meant for two. The owner of the land where the community would like to have a new building and the principal were happy to hear that we would try to raise the money needed. However, this would depend on a proposal which we would have to prepare being acceptable for a donor organisation. Furthermore, we would need to raise the required own contribution which we would have to finance from donations.
In our Education Centre (EC) we were happy to see the bright faces of the boys and girls who are really inter-ested in studying. During the English lessons they had many questions for us. We met the girls in the beautiful newly constructed six-class-room building which was put up during the summer in the grounds of the Yuldoz Girls' High School. We were asked by the teachers of Yuldoz to start a nursery school (for which first a new building would be necessary). We included this request in our long list of future plans.
We had lively discussions with the teachers of our EC, the home courses and sewing courses as well as the team of the Andkhoi Zeeba-Magazine. We gathered important information for our future work and could also give some advice to young teachers. We were told that some of our previous home school students now have jobs as teachers themselves. Some of the older teachers who had studied during the communist period have now reached retirement-age – the Pashtu teacher is 82 years old. We have some very good young teachers in our EC; six of them have just attended a teacher training seminar organised by GIZ in Mazar-e-Sharif (we paid for the travel costs, accommodation and food). We hope to organize workshops in Andkhoi so that they can pass on what they have learned to their colleagues. With the teacher and the trainees of our electric work-shop we talked about solar cookers and solar energy and hope that they will work on the new ideas. In our well equipped library we were happy to see so many boys and talk to them in English and and and ….
You can see that once again we can look back on a successful trip from which we have again brought many requests for future help. It would be great if we have been successful in convincing you to continue your sup-port of our projects. We need your help especially for the Small Projects Scheme and the support of the stu-dents, both can be seen as "help for self-help" which is our main aim. But we also need your support for fi-nancing the own contribution for the construction projects which is required for proposals to the Ministry of International Cooperation and Development. The positive changes in the field of education which started
especially in 2002 have to be continued – the young generation of Afghanistan, their parents and teachers are setting their hopes in us. Please continue to help us. Thank you very much.
Best regards
Marga Flader Ingrid Fraser
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Old Hands and Greenhorns – Our Trips to Afghanistan in April 2011
Travelling is not safe in Afghanistan these days, but many of our friends and colleagues want to go and make their own experiences anyway. Therefore, in April, four people closely connected to our committee visited Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif and Andkhoi: Marga Flader and Leo Heyelmann as well as Ulla Nölle and Rasso Leicher later-on. In Kabul we spent a few days together. At our next annual meeting, Leo Heyelmann will be a candidate for the board. Rasso Leicher, who is a teacher at one of our partner schools and has recently become a member of our committee, is planning another charity event at his school. As you know, Ulla Nölle and Marga Flader have been to Afghanistan many times. As space is limited, the travellers can only write about some very special experiences in this short report.
*****
Ulla Nölle:
It was a wonderful trip, but the desert was not so colourful this spring as I had experienced in the past and as I had wished for. There was not as much rain north of the Hindukush as in the south.
In Mazar-e-Sharif we watched a cheerful football tournament at the school in Chooghdak whose principal I have known from Haripur camp in Pakistan since 1986. The beginning in Mazar-e-Sharif was difficult for him, but now this school is also a very good example of what a school should be like, just as the one in Haripur had been.
We also visited the other schools which VUSAF built in Mazar-e-Sharif and collected letters for the partner schools. This exchange between schools here and there is very important for both sides.
The construction work at Fatema Zahra girls' school was still going on at 5 p.m. and is progressing well. The workers and I were happy to meet once more as we have known each other for a long time. This was the same in Andkhoi. We have worked in that region for so long that it seems we belong there. In the schools, in the Education Centre with its different courses, in the sewing centres and home courses we were greeted happily so that we could talk freely about the achievements and problems. Of course, there are problems which have to be solved, but it is much easier to do that during these visits than from Germany.
Everyone who knows about our "chicken projects" will be glad to hear that we were able to carry out another one: Another 200 families received 18 hens and 2 roosters – a very important help for them. The women are looking after the chickens and experience the good feeling of earning their own money to support their families: on average they earn approx. 50 USD per month.
I could report much more about these nice days, but I only have half a page and so I am closing with my best wishes and the request: Please do not forget us!
*****
Marga Flader:
The most important day for me during this trip was the visit of the school in Qipchok (District of Andkhoi). In December 2007 Ulla Nölle and I visited the school for the first time when the girls and boys were being taught in a rented house. We were asked for a new school building. Since then the community bought the land for a school, built the boundary wall and simple mud buildings. They kept asking us for a proper building for their children. In the end the elders even visited me at our guest house. Last year we were told that some young men had joined the Taliban and that security was so bad that we could not visit the area. However, during this trip we went to see the school, and I was very happy not only to see the new school building, which is almost finished, and many girls in the old classrooms (and one new room which the community had built), but I could also talk to the many village elders who came to see us. They are grateful and promised to ensure that the girls and boys would always be able to go to school in safety. I was very happy that day and everyone else, too.
I was also glad to take part in the inauguration of the new building for Nahr-e-Top High School for Girls in Mazar and grateful that we managed to do this big project (24 classrooms plus auxiliary rooms). However, the next day I was shocked to see the terrible conditions under which the girls at Fatema Zahra School are studying now. It is really good that they will also get a proper building. The foundation stone was laid and the construction work has begun.
The many meetings and discussions we had with our colleagues in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif and Andkhoi were also very important for me during this trip. We are a good team and we are working well together to improve the education system in Afghanistan.
*****
Leo Heyelmann:
My first trip to Afghanistan accompanying Marga on a project visit – I was eager, curious and confident that everything would be all right. I submerged into a world which up to now had been rather strange to me and emerged again after three weeks enriched by new impressions, adventures and experiences. It is very different to hear or read about an educational project and about the persons involved for many years and then to actually see them personally. Many things became more understandable and clear only now. And so much happened which made me feel close to the people and their environment: For example the nice young teacher of a home school who said that her own mother now attends such a home school to learn to read and write. And the joy we had in the many classes singing "Brother John" together in English, German and finally also in Dari. Or the funny play which the girls of the Education Centre performed about a disdained groom – we did not understand a word, but joined in the laughter. Or the young boy who after I said that in Germany boys and girls are taught together in one class, replied instantly, "That's ok" and made everyone laugh. Or the many requests for additional computer and English courses. Or the happiness everyone felt when we found the tulips we had hoped to see during our outing in Shomali.
Or …. I have lots more to say, but I shall have to do that another time.
All these big and small experiences with the endearing and hospitable people young and old who are eager to learn gave me new strength and encouraged me to continue our work because it is good and necessary.
*****
Rasso Leicher:
The absolute highlight for me as an "Afghanistan-Greenhorn" were the football tournaments in Chooghdak (Mazar-e-Sharif) and Andkhoi. I had brought along 40 footballs signed by the students of Gymnasium Neubiberg while Marga Flader had already organized the purchase of the football outfits (including shoes) for which donations had been made. Everyone who has ever played football can certainly imagine what it means for the young Afghan boys to play in their own new dress for their school team. We had stirring and exciting games with many spectators which led to a lot of discussions. The district governor of Andkhoi gave us the honour and was present during all the games; he was a real expert on football.
During my visits to different schools I was especially impressed by the great motivation and discipline of the boys and girls as well as their teachers who not only gratefully accept the help of the committee but lead it to a wonderful harvest either by passing on the knowledge of the English language, the competence with the computers or their careful use of the teaching materials and much more. These impressions were topped by the great hospitality of the members of VUSAF and the beauty of the country. I will be very happy to tell my students that their donations have fallen on such fruitful grounds and that we should continue to support our friends who live in such difficult conditions on their road to better education.
*****
We would like to thank you for your support in the past and hope that you will continue your help also in the future. The Yuldoz Girls' High School in Andkhoi needs classrooms urgently. Furthermore, our colleagues in Andkhoi have received 17 proposals for the Small Projects Fund for the construction of classrooms, storerooms or toilets. The schools supported by VUSAF would receive 100,000 Afghanis if they contribute about the same amount themselves, carry out the project independently and report to us afterwards. We think this kind of support is very good and would like to accept 10 proposals for which we would need USD 22,000! Would you like to support such a project?
Kind regards
Ursula Nölle |
Marga Flader |
Leo Heyelmann |
Rasso Leicher |
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For futher information you can contact us as follows:
Afghanistan-Schulen, Deefenallee 21, 22113 Oststeinbek
E-Mail: info@Afghanistan-Schulen.de
Tel. ++49 40 712 24 67 or 713 83 01 (Marga und Klaus Flader)
or Tel. +++49 / 40 / 643 23 11 (Tanja Khorrami)
