Marga and Klaus Flader reporting from their March-visit
Dear Friends
This spring no-one of our members from Germany was able to visit the projects because of private obligations, however, we still wanted a personal contact with our colleagues in Afghanistan and, therefore, we interrupted our holidays and flew from Dubai to Kabul for a short visit. Maybe it was good that we could not stay for long because only a week later multiple attacks took place on guest houses in Kabul where foreigners like to stay - not far from where we had done our shopping.
We made good use of our four day stay in Kabul for intense discussions with our colleagues who came from Andkhoi and Mazar-e-Sharif to Kabul. These meetings of our staff from three different places which are several hundred kilometres apart take place every two months; twice a year mem-bers from Germany are also taking part. There were many topics. Our most important project is our Education Centre in Andkhoi. Our colleagues from Andkhoi reported that the preparatory courses were very popular. Meanwhile, we have preparatory courses not only for the students of the upper grades (10 to 12) but also for students of grades 7, 8 and 9. The students come from four districts of the province of Faryab in which we are active. These courses are necessary because unfortunately because of inadequate qualification of the teachers the quality of education at the state schools is still not good enough. With these courses we are preparing the students for university. Last year, a total of 143 boys and 19 girls have taken the entry test for university.
222 students are attending the English courses and 232 students the computer courses at the Education Centre in order to be able to work in an office lateron. Practical exercises complete their lessons. “Our house” has an excellent laboratory and a library with more than 2000 titles which are borrowed on a regular basis – since the start of the library about 40.000 times. Every day 25 to 20 people come for a visit.
It is always a special challenge to start something new, just like our new training workshop for elec-tricians. In previous months we had found a trainer in Mazar-e-Sharif who has the required experi-ence and brought along the right teaching material. The workshop was adapted for the electricity training. The community was informed so that young men interested in becoming an electrician could apply. This proved somewhat difficult because we were not able to pay a high salary to the trainees. However, we told that because the economic situation continues to be bad; nobody would be able to take part in a long training program without receiving some kind of grant. An additional problem was the duration of the training. We had included Dari, mathematics and physics into the curriculum but we had still overestimated the education the young men had received at school. They had actually completed 9 years at school, however, this was about 10 years ago during the Taliban times. Therefore, we decided to extend the duration of the training to 18 months. We hope that during these 18 months we will not only train good experts but, furthermore, that in future there would be fewer casualties due to improper handling of electricity (The area was connected to the Uzbek electricity grid only four years ago).
Last year alone, 36 girls from our home courses enrolled to 7th grade of the local girls’ schools. Since we started home schooling, a total number of 187 girls joined state schools and another 270 completed grade 6. At present, 214 girls and women aged 13 to 48 attend our home courses and 48 the sewing courses.
Our construction managers reported about their work during the past months and proudly showed us photos of the completed projects. In Chakman (District of Khancharbagh) we built a school and a second floor for a school in Mazar-e-Sharif which we started in 2002 for returnees from the refugee camps in Pakistan. We also managed to complete a double storey school building with 16 classrooms for the Maqsadullah Shaheed High School as well as kitchen and dining room for the Agricultural Institute in Mazar-e-Sharif. Now our construction teams are waiting for further projects. We sent a proposal to the Foreign Office for a new building for the girls’ school with 3000 students which we saw in October and hope that we would be able to complete this project during 2010. All schools are growing and need additional classrooms. Elders, school principals, teachers and students have requested additional buildings for their schools. Also our employees report that further requests have been received. We submitted some proposals and hope that we can carry out further projects this year in Andkhoi and Mazar-e-Sharif. Perhaps another chicken project. 2009 we distributed 2400 chickens to 120 families of teachers. The chickens are now producing eggs which is a welcomed source of income for the families.
Now it might seem to you that everything is going well in the Andkhoi region. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Since our return to Germany, we received some bad news. It seems that opposition groups (be it Taliban or criminals) are active in the region. Firstly, socalled night letters (threats) were distributed demanding that the parents do not to send their daughters to school. Then one evening the office of a girls’ school was set on fire. On the following day there was another attack on a girls’ school. The guard (caretaker) was bound and computers stolen. These incidents worry the parents, the teachers and students and our colleagues very much. The additional foreign troops in the south seem to have shifted the resistance to the north. Despite their worries and concerns, 20 % of the girls came to school the following morning! That filled us with admiration. The girls themselves made clear that no one can keep them from going to school. Furthermore, after the attacks, meetings were held in many schools in the districts together with the district administration, the police and the parents and teachers to ensure the safety of the schools. The parents employed an additional guard who would work together with the official school guard (caretaker). The police are regularly patrolling the areas around the schools.
Of course, we are very unhappy that the unrest has reached Andkhoi and that girls’ schools were attacked. However, this should not prevent us from supporting all those who want education for their girls and boys. We do not want to give in and do not want the terrorists to be successful. We would like to repair the school and remove the eyesore. Almost everyone in the area wants their girls and boys of the region to be educated – the visit of the elders from a remote village who demanded the construction of a girls’ school last October made it clear to us. We hope that you are also of the same opinion and would continue to support our work also in the future. The new generation whom we help to educate today and their parents want to build a peaceful Afghanistan in the heart of Asia.
With kind regards
Marga and Klaus Flader
Marga Flader and Tanja Khorrami reporting from their October-visit
Afghanistan –failed state, dominated by war, terror, corruption and economically without hope, dependent on foreign help, with everyone worried about the future, especially after the irregularities in the last election …???
Yes, all this is true: But there is so much more to tell - about the people and their life in the towns and vil-lages. Much has happened during the last years. Many big and small roads have been built; the traffic is start-ing to work according to rules. Electrification is reaching more places and is mostly available 24 hours/day. Water is still a problem; however, also this problem is being tackled. The pump stations and pipes from the Amu Darya to the northern region of Andkhoi are almost completed. Now the people are waiting for the next project – getting their houses connected to the water supply. Then drinking water which is not salty would be available. The weather was also merciful this year: The harvests were good. All this gives rise to hope, pro-vided that security does not worsen. There are no signs for improvement at the moment; the many check-posts at the roadsides make it obvious: The country is not safe.
Of course, also the people in Andkhoi feel this, however, right now the situation seems calmer here than in other places. Lots of construction projects are going on: houses, schools, roads, shops and petrol stations. Every day there are wedding parties with music till late in the night. We took also part in a wedding party. Rahmanqul’s son married a girl from Andkhoi and celebrated there together with his friends. It was a nice celebration. Everyone was remembering our beloved friend and regional director who was murdered 2 ½ years ago. It made us glad to learn during this visit that finally the Khancharbagh High School would be named in his honour. Also two more schools will bear the names of two other headmasters who were mur-dered in the last two years.
We spent 12 days in Andkhoi which gave us enough time to see many schools and other projects. We were very impressed by the many young people (130 boys and 60 girls) who do not only attend the schools, but also take part in English or computer courses starting at 7 o’clock in the morning and after school go to classes in our education centre (EC) for extra tuition in Dari, English, mathematics, physics, chemistry and religion in preparation of the university entry exams. We found the students tremendously open, inquisitive, determined and critical and at the same time thankful for the chance for additional tuition at our education centre. In the hands of such young men and women the future of Afghanistan will certainly look different than in the past.
We could see how necessary it is to continue the support when we went to the state schools. Some schools are really excellent, teachers and students are giving their best; there is a good working atmosphere, the buildings are well looked after, different cultural activities are organised and sports clubs are working well. Unfortu-nately, there are also some schools which have a good building but the lessons are not so useful. Text books are missing, there are not enough teachers or the teachers are not qualified enough. Most students who leave school after 12th grade get a job as a teacher if they do not pass the university entry test. The need for teachers is still great because every year many more children start school. However, as the tuition of these young teachers had been flawed because of the years of war, they cannot pass on any more to their students than that contained in the textbooks. We met teachers who were teaching English without having learned English them-selves. These young teachers attend teacher training college in the afternoon and only after completion of this three years’ course they are entitled to receive their full salary. In a meeting the responsible heads of education at district level promised to support the schools in their endeavours to get extra help from the education offices in Kabul (capital) and Maimana (province). They were grateful for the new school building which we could inaugurate during our visit.
The Parents-Teacher-Associations (PTA) now take care of small repairs of the school buildings: They replace broken window panes, put a layer of mud on the mud roofs to waterproof them, paint walls and fill small holes. For some repairs they have asked us to provide the material while they organise the labour. For bigger repairs we were asked to carry out the repairs, i.e. termites have attacked some schools buildings and we shall have to replace the wooden windows with metal ones. In some villages new schools buildings are needed. In Galikhana for example more than 400 girls are taught in four rooms which they themselves call „stable“. In summer they are sitting under the trees. The committed principal promised to build a boundary wall with the help of the villagers around the new school plot. We shall try to obtain the necessary funds for a new school building. In another village the situation is similar. Here too the villagers would be very happy to get a new school building and they promised to help as much as they can.
In some remote areas, where some years ago the girls where hiding their faces behind their scarves, we now met very open-minded inquisitive young girls who demanded better lessons, more teaching material and more support. Some of them are now attending teacher training college. They start from grade 10 and after five years they will be a qualified teacher. It is obvious that they have the support of their fathers – something which we could not imagine some years ago. Many girls together with their mothers and aunts came to the „women’s day“ which took place on 8 October in our education centre. They enjoyed their chats, played games or took part in sports activities. In a very nice ceremony certificates were handed out to the students of our home courses, computer and English courses.
We enjoyed very much our visits to some families in the district of Khancharbagh where we had organised our first „chicken project“. After some theoretical training 23 families received 20 chickens each for which they had built some houses from mud. The women were very hopeful to be earning their own money from selling eggs in the near future. On this day we could see again with our own eyes: The endeavours of our committee are bearing fruit, even if it takes some time. We hope that you will continue your support of our projects.
In Mazar-e-Sharif we visited four schools during our three day stay. The school in Chooghdak was already using four of the newly built classrooms although the building was not finished yet. During the break the stu-dents were crowding the playground which was fitted out with new swings, seesaws and climbing frames during the summer.
The principal of the agricultural school where we have almost finished the last of our construction projects (school building, dormitory and kitchen/dining room) told us enthusiastically that he had just received a letter that the school has now been promoted to an Agricultural Institute. This means that from now on the students can attend the institute from grade 10 to grade 14 after which they would have a very good chance of getting a job in agriculture or administration.
At present we are constructing a double story building for another school, Maqsadullah Shaheed with the fi-nancial help of the German Foreign Ministry. We were impressed by the quality of this school, however, not only us, but also the representative of the Foreign Office who accompanied us; especially the young chemistry teacher impressed us. She openly talked about her problems and asked for a laboratory for the school which, we think, would be a good investment for this school where only well qualified teachers teach the 972 girls and 856 boys.
The representative of the Foreign Ministry also accompanied us to the Nahr-e-Top Girls School which urg-ently needs a building for their more than 3000 students and 60 teachers. The land is available and the princi-pal promised to build the boundary wall around the 6000 m² plot with the help of the parents.
For the many projects and new schools we shall need quite a lot of money in the next years. Even if we re-ceive financial help from the German government, our committee needs to bear 25 % of the project costs from private donations. We trust that you will – as always – continue your support to enable us to continue our work.
With best regards
Marga Flader Tanja Khorrami
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 / 4541 / 80 20 90 (Helga Schumacher)
Fax ++49 40 713 83 04
