Afghan Girls Education Program (AGEP)

AGEP is filling the void for the traditional schooling of Afghan girls interrupted after the fall of the government in August, through restoring hope and capacity building.

AGEP is filling the void for the traditional schooling of Afghan girls interrupted after the fall of the government in August. The dire need of supporting Afghan girls to education in restoring their lost hope due to the collapse of the state by the Taliban – anti-girls’ education, fanatics and terrorist group – is a crucial subject matter to be emboldened. The program helps students gain substantial knowledge and skills of English language proficiency, digital literacy and provide them one-to-one mentorship, educational advising and financial support to more than 30 Afghan girls. At the end of the program students are introduced to educational opportunities abroad. They also receive support in hunting scholarships to continue their education overseas. This program is a volunteer-led initiative run by Afghan youth based in exile. The design of the program is a bottom-up approach, where activities are the bottom, objectives are the middle, and components are the top layer to achieve the overall program goal. The management methodology is the ‘Waterfall’ method, where all program activities are planned to the lowest detail in the beginning so that the team and partners are well aware of the whats and whens of the activities beforehand.

Taliban is a terroristic, violent, and ethnicity-based group led by extremist Muslim leaders. The group is known for using violence for achieving goals and practicing extreme Islamic rules, including executing and not allowing women to work and educate. In the first period of the Taliban’s regime 1996-2001, women were not allowed to work outside and needed to be accompanied by a male family member when going outside. Similarly, now, Taliban does not allow girls to work or educate. There are three challenges most related to girls' education in Afghanistan that need innovative interventions.

The first challenge that AGEP focuses on is the loss of young girls' access and engagement with education. The challenge resulted from the Taliban's violent and bident perspective on women's participation in public activities, including education and working.

The second challenge is the decreasing quality of education due to the halt of educational development institutes and private intensive education providers. Each day passing, development institutes close due to financial crises or conflicting with extreme Islamic values. 

The difficulty of access to international educational opportunities is the third challenge towards girls' education, resulting from the overall circumstances of Afghanistan. 

Almost every Afghan girl faces this problem. They are under social and mental pressure of losing will and courage due to an uncertain future as the main consequence of problem. 

On 15th, August 2021, over a night, the same as every other democratic values/rights, the whole Afghan girls’ education thing changed to a fantasy. After the second overtaken of Kabul by the Taliban, it was crystal clear that the Taliban will not easily let girls and women access the same rights and facilities as the republic regime. Among many crucial rights, education was taken from girls. The first component of the program provides young girls with an opportunity to develop English language and digital literacy, and personal and interpersonal skills. The second component connects each of the 30 girls with a committed, passionate, and dedicated young Afghan currently based outside of Afghanistan, preferably students. Mentors are required to helps mentees with getting ready to seek, apply, and enter, college and UG educational programs through providing meaningful advices and feedbacks, introducing platforms and resources for developing skills and seeking opportunities, and delivering mental supports to restore hope and optimism. To address the third challenge, AGEP provides girls with a online platform to access, explore, and apply international educational opportunities. The platform includes open opportunities and the opportunities that AGEP’s Advocacy team secures exclusively for the girls. The platform contains detailed information, links, and recorded video sessions describing every aspect of an opportunity -scholarship, grant, financial aid, etc. The last component of the program provides girls with a limited financial support as monthly stipend to assist girls in purchase of internet data packages and education material such as stationery.

The squeal of laments in the interruption of education, particularly for girls in Afghanistan, after the fall of the government left myriads of girls in downright limbo. The necessity of such an initiative untucks the misery in times when the Afghan girls are sidelined, silenced and ensnared at homes. The team members feel the gap is stitched in providing a mentorship non-traditional schooling opportunity for girls to develop the necessary skills of English language, digital literacy and communication – important skills to help them steer further educational opportunities abroad. The potential partners would be World Learning international organization -  working to build a better future for all people through education, sustainable development, and exchange. They are working with individuals, communities and institutions to find comprehensive solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges, such as poverty, conflict, and inequality.

The reason for selecting this step is that we have a clear idea of what the program is, what challenges we address, who our audience is, what our solution is, and our every step towards achieving our goal. 

Technology is key to our program success. We use digital platforms such as video conferencing tools, communication tools, and storage tools to make our program happen. The implementation of the activities is online, using suitable group and individual meeting and texting communications as below: 

1. Zoom for the use of courses, online sessions, and meetings.
2. Email and WhatsApp for individual and group communication.
3. G-suite for management of the Opportunity Center. 

For period 2022, the program helps students gain substantial knowledge and skills of English language proficiency, digital literacy and provide them one-to-one mentorship, educational advising and financial support to more than 30 Afghan girls per round. Consequently, for future periods, we aim to increase the number of our beneficiaries significantly.

Our goal is to provide young Afghan girls with means, resources, and support to be able to continue their education in international educational environments such as colleges, universities, and institutes, free of fear and inhumanely regulations, through developing their knowledge of English language and digital literacy, providing one to one and collective mentorship, and supporting financially.  

To achieve the above goal, of Afghan girls in reaching their dreams of educating, AGEP implements an innovative and effective four component plan. The components address the above challenges both separately and jointly. Overall, the program enables young Afghan girls to continue their education at an international higher education institute anywhere in the world.  

As a program with long-term vision, AGEP implemented standard monitoring, controlling, and reporting measures. We value factors that evaluate our performance and progress, and feel accountable for every decision we make and every work we do. AGEP evaluates, controls and reports as below:

1. Monitoring: for us, monitoring the programs’ progress is as critical as the implementation of it. We use daily observation and monthly assessment approaches for monitoring of every activity inside AGEP, including students, mentors, and teachers’ performance, progress of advocacy efforts, effectiveness and efficiency of administration, and accurate management of finance.    
2. Controlling: we use the information from monitoring to bring any necessary changes and modification that endangers the program success, decreases the quality of educational programs, etc. We secure alternative options for challenging situations such as substitutes of students, mentors, or team members.  
3. Reporting:  we report our progress, success, limitations, and failures to every stakeholder including donor, students, and if-needed, the public. Our standard reporting system for donors consists of Monthly Progress Reports, Six Month Progress Reports, and Final Reports. The reports include every necessary aspect including education progression, finance, and advocacy effort. 

The main barrier to the implementation of AGEP is the budget of the program. AGEP cannot be done successfully without having the estimated budget. Other barriers can challenge the program's success, such as the risk of more violence, larger and more humanitarian crises. These barriers, however, are not seriously concerning the program and are anticipated risks.  

Ali Sina Doosti

Mr. Doosti is a young and energetic educator carrying years’ experience in implementation of youth empowerment programs, including educational activities. Mr. Doosti is a co-founder of Rainbow Summer Program, a summer camp promoting diversity among Afghan youth since 2018. Ali has been part of many civic engagement and youth empowerment movements and programs including, GAKKO, UWC Courses and Global Citizenship Network, A World at School, Roya Mentorship Program and AUAF Peer Mentorship Program, etc. 

Ziafatullah Saeedi

Mr. Saeedi is an Advocate and Legal Specialist holding years of experience in leading volunteer programs promoting diversity and education. Mr. Saeedi is a co-founder of Rainbow and fellow of AMENDS 2019. Ziafat has been working with The Integrity Watch Afghanistan for the past three years. Mr. Saeedi leads the Advocacy Team at AGEP. 

Ghulam Sakhi Ataye

Mr. Ataye is a Management and Communication Specialist, experienced in supporting youth and women through promoting civic engagement, women inclusion, and gender equality. Sakhi is a co-founder of Arvand Consultancy, a consulting club enabling youths to take advantage of international educational opportunities and mentor of AUAF Peer Mentorship Program. For the past three years, Sakhi has been working at Afghanistan New Generation Organization in Communication and Operation Manager roles.  Sakhi leads the Admin Team at AGEP.  

Roqia Ebrahimi

Ms. Ebrahimi is a woman and girls’ rights activist and mentor. She holds two bachelor degrees in Finance from the American University of Afghanistan and Communication from the Kabul University. Ms. Ebrahimi is responsible for the financial affairs of the program.   

Ehsanullah Dehzad

Mr. Dehzad is a passionate Information Technology student at the American University of Afghanistan. Ehsan is responsible for the design, development, and management of digital and graphic platforms and materials of the program.     

We are working to partner with American University of Afghanistan, American University of Central Asia, Bard College, Open Society Network, Afghanistan New Generation Organization and more to increase the quality of the program.  

After the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghan women, especially, girls got an exceptional opportunity to access education and attend schools, universities, and educational institutes. One of the vivid improvements was the education of girls to an extent that education has been promoted and mushroomed among girls and families. According to the UNESCO report in 2018, female literacy showed an increase of 30% showing a major increase in the number of Afghan girls attending schools and universities. Among which cities had the largest percentage of girls attending schools and other educational institutes. The increase in the number/percentage of girls and women accessing education not only helped them improve individually and stand for their individual rights and demands, but also helped the society and country benefit from the active engagement of women and girls in several fields including business and economy, labour and human resources, education and science, government, and sports. The continued improvement of education quality and access among women helped them access high level national and international opportunities and take part in country-wide decision making. Also, young women received thousands of international higher education opportunities and experienced the positiveness of international academic and non-academic environments. The caravan was moving forward and bringing more hope as the percentage of women accessing education was increasing day by day and more families were letting girls attend schools understanding the importance of education.

However, on 15th, August 2021, over a night, the same as every other democratic values/rights, the whole Afghan girls’ education thing changed to a fantasy. After the second overtaken of Kabul by the Taliban, 21 years after the invasion of Afghanistan by the US, it was crystal clear that the Taliban will not easily let girls and women access the same rights and facilities as the republic regime. Among many crucial rights, education was taken from girls who were attending secondary and high school, university and other educational institutes. In the most recent announcement by the Taliban, girls were advised to not come to institutes and wait for the final decision about their outside-the-home education and work faith. In addition, women are not allowed to work on high ranking positions in government and no women are included in the so far announced temporary cabinet. Consequently, Taliban have continuously announced that education is not a credible factor for appointments and hiring and women have to stay at home.

Considering the current environment of changes and decisions made by the Taliban, millions of women and girls will be banned from accessing secondary school, higher education, and working opportunities; putting in danger the future and life of millions!  In response to the difficulties of access to education for secondary and high school students, The Afghan Girls Mentorship Program is offered for Afghan female high school students to develop their English language literacy and other required skills to be able to acquire international opportunities such as scholarship to pursue their dreams of higher education.

We believe through providing proper means and resources using the Pozen Social Innovation Prize, Afghan girls grab every opportunity to pursue their dreams of continuing education and be the hope of change, and better tomorrow.