Islamic Relief has extended a successful scheme offering home-based education to poor women in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province.
Much of Afghanistan’s infrastructure has been devastated by four decades of conflict, which has also created insecurity that continues to impact upon already limited education programmes for women.
Our successful project in Bamyan and a pilot in Waras districts enabled women to learn at home to gain skills that improve the quality of their lives. The project’s success led to local authorities requesting Islamic Relief to extend it to more remote communities – where rates of poverty are high and less than one per cent of women are literate.
Empowering women with essential mainstream skills
The extension is already enabling an additional 1,800 women to learn essential mainstream skills in a ten-month curriculum, assisted by specialist teachers and instructors.
Topics covered include reading, writing and basic mathematical skills, as well as family economics. Health topics include HIV/AIDS prevention, drug awareness and good hygiene practices. Participants are also empowered to become self-supporting or to contribute to family income with micro-business training focussed on opportunities in their village.
In addition, the programme is developing leadership skills amongst women, empowering them to participate in decision-making within their communities.
Islamic Relief has been working in Afghanistan since 1992, and delivers emergency programmes as well as a range of development projects.