Success Stories from Our Members in the field

Giving Afghan Children Hope Through Education, Save the Children

Long before the war on terrorism, resources for education in Afghanistan were minimal. In recent decades tens of thousands of teachers fled, school buildings were neglected or destroyed, and teachers received little or no training. Consequently, an entire generation of Afghan children has been deprived of education and the opportunity for a better life.

The statistics are miserable: 47 percent of men in Afghanistan and only 15 percent of women can read and write.

Save the Children, an American nongovernmental organization, has been working with partners including UNICEF, the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees and the British government to rebuild primary education for Afghanistan's children, especially girls.

Since the mid-1990s, Save the Children U.S. has helped educate 45,000 children, both inside Afghanistan and in refugee camps in neighboring Pakistan.

In Pakistan, Save the Children set up Home Based Girls Schools to educate older refugee girls who the repressive Taliban-led government in Afghanistan had deprived of education, forcing them to stay at home lest they mix with boys and violate the repressive regime's interpretation of the Koran. Save the Children's program helped raise the rate of school enrollment for girls from 12 percent to 34 percent.

To accommodate the thousands of Afghan refugees who have returned after the fall of the Taliban, Save the Children, working with the Afghan Interim Administration, has helped build schools, train teachers and distribute educational materials.

By helping rebuild education for Afghanistan's women and children, Save the Children and its partners are creating more opportunities and a safer world by giving people hope where they once only had the empty promises of extremism and violence.