The Global Fund For Children

Schools, Not Guns: Courageous Leadership in Afghanistan

• By The Global Fund for Children on November 16th, 2011
• Category: Featured, South Asia, Success Stories

Grantee Partner
Afghan Institute of Learning

Location
Kabul, Afghanistan

“Many times I have told the story about the boys with guns in their hands, stopping our car and wanting to talk to me,” says Sakena Yacoobi, director of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL). “Although I was afraid, I got out of the car.”

Yacoobi was used to fear—since 1995 she had been bringing educational opportunities to women and girls in Afghanistan, and for years she operated directly in conflict with the Taliban government. During that time, girls’ education was outlawed, and women’s employment was banned.

Although the Taliban was no longer in power, the country was unstable, and AIL continued to spark conflict. But that day, when Yacoobi got out of her car, the boys didn’t want to hurt her. They had heard of her work for Afghan women and girls—now they wanted to go to school, too.

After 30 years of civil war, Afghanistan’s educational system had crumbled, and boys were falling through the cracks. Young teenagers—like the boys who stopped Yacoobi’s car—were considered too old and too far behind to go to be admitted to government school. Many had been soldiers and now had no peacetime skills for survival.

Soon after Yacoobi met those boys, The Global Fund for Children gave AIL a grant to help open schools for boys in Nangarhar and Kabul provinces. We had already been supporting AIL’s schools for girls, and when Yacoobi saw another need in her community, we were ready to help.

Today, AIL offers advanced education classes for Afghan children, in addition to teacher trainings, women’s learning centers, human rights and leadership trainings, and health clinics and workshops. When we first supported AIL in 1999, it was a small organization with a budget of $25,000. Today, AIL has a budget of $1.5 million and employs 450 Afghans. We awarded AIL with a Sustainability Award in 2005.

Yacoobi is still in touch with the boys who stopped her on the road with their guns. She tells their story as an example of how education can transform lives, even in times of uncertainty and danger.

“Those boys put down their guns and started studying,” Yacoobi says. “Today, those same boys are teachers of English and computer, and are supporting their families with the money they earn. Their lives have completely changed because they were given a chance to study.”

Photograph © William Vasquez, photographer, and Maternal Health Initiative supported through a grant from the Abbott Fund