School Sponsorship - Abdullah Bin Omar Primary School

At their new desks in Abdullah Bin Omar Primary School in Paghman District, the girls' eyes light up like candles. Their dark, tousled heads, lightly powdered with the construction dust that covers everything, bend over their textbook, their arms and legs in loose black tunic dresses and pants, still. At eight, their shoulders slump slightly from doing chores, from caring for younger siblings, and from knowing their worth is less than that of their brothers. Across the corridor, the snag-toothed first-grade boys in ubiquitous T-shirts, ancient European sweaters, and jackets with team or athletic equipment logos recycled from around the globe, finger their pencils and read out their lesson.

Hopeful and curious, these children watched this school rise beside what had recently been the rubble heaps of their partially destroyed village. They saw the straight white-washed walls and well-framed windows, the protective compound and courtyard, open up to a state-of-the art facility: clean classrooms with desks and blackboards, books and notebooks, teachers and the greatest gift—the promise of an education. In attending--if only for a two and a half hour-shift each day—their pride in being sought after and gifted with the means to study, to write and draw just for themselves; radiates from their young bodies. More than the rooms and the teachers, this school offers them an outlet, a hope, a validation that they—the children of Afghanistan-- have a future.

At the tables in Class IV, the pens scratch diligently. Thirteen-year old Freshta perches on the broad low-footed wooden Nurastani chair, her large white scarf covering a mop of dark curly hair, narrow shoulders and chest, the cloth wrapped tightly around her thin, oval face like a nun's cowl. She smiles and shares her dreams for herself and her country:

I am the top student in my class. We used to live in Kabul city. During the war time in Kabul our family moved into Paghman. We had no house to live in there. My uncle gave us room in his house….Some times later my uncle did not like us for some reason. We built a hut from the brush under a tree. Our life was terrible. We had to tolerate the hardship of such life. My father had no work. Finally we decided to make a shelter. We can manage with this type of living. Our family consists of 13 persons. I like mathematics and sports, especially volleyball. I like vegetables. I want to become a doctor in future to serve my country.

To be a doctor and "serve my beloved people" is also the dream of 12-year old Ayesha, a schoolmate of Freshta and head student in her 3B class. Her pale face and lean straight nose, the intense black eyes, echo her ancient roots, and under the folds of her tightly draped scarf the face of a Roman-Greek fresco from the 10th century looks out. One of eight in her family, she is interested in all her school subjects.

Today, through the school sponsorship of HTAC, Freshta, Ayesha and 1300 other students look out on the miracle of Abdullah Bin Omar's state-of-the-art building, with its new teachers, rooms, books and school supplies. When first launched in 2002, with funds collected for the Integrated Model Primary School (IMPS) Program and following a school district needs assessment survey in Paghman district, HTAC worked closely with the community, to gather Afghanistan girls and boys on some of the governmentally-designated lots for elementary schools in the area and begin open air instruction. Construction began. War had gutted the entire educational structure and its building in what was once a calm retreat on the edge of the capital city. Unfazed by the surrounding piles of rubble from bombs and demolished buildings and homes, teachers seated the eager children cross-legged under the shade of walnut and poplar trees, or in the open field as the sun seared some days, scavenging to find them materials in old dog-eared textbooks. Afghan Students shared rare notebooks and pencils or practiced writing letters on the ground, while the teachers wrote lesson on the stones in front of them.

Open-air teaching at the site of ABO 2002 (top); students lining up for classes

When Abdullah Bin Omar Primary School (ABO) opened in 2003, it was the first of its kind, with 23 classrooms, seven administrative rooms, 850 students (350 of whom were girls), and 10 female and 12 male teachers. It had the capacity to enroll 1800 students and to employ 52 teachers. Today, ABO has 26 classrooms, 1300 students (including 625 girls), and 69 teachers who receive training and a stipend to implement the HTAC program.

In May 2004, HTAC convened the first community committee shura at ABO, a model replicated for all HTAC projects, and based on solid community participation, support and ownership at all levels of school planning and building, construction, program implementation and maintenance. Furnished and built by local workers using local supplies, ABO, like all HTAC-sponsored schools are bly constructed, maintained in excellent condition, and built for a quarter as much as other aid-supported programs.

Joyful students in classroom at ABO school in Paghman District, April 2007

But the voices of the Afghanistan students themselves weigh in further on the education they now receive. During her welcoming visit to ABO in April 2007, her 45th trip to Afghanistan for HTAC, Suraya Sadeed interviewed children for the "innocent wisdom" project. Asked about love, nature, God, war, peace, and happiness like freshly-washed gems the first through fifth graders described their dreams and revealed their new understanding. The best way to make the world a better place, more than four-fifths enthusiastically piped up, was to build a school, a sponsored school. Abdullah Bin Omar is such a school, opening dreams and educating a new Afghan generation.

As an HTAC Afghanistan school or educational program sponsor, you can help build dreams and educate children across Afghanistan and empower HTAC to replicate more facilities like Abdullah bin Omar Primary school. You can ensure that the community invests in its girls, children who often risk their lives to attend classes in targeted areas and whose courage defies century-old prejudices and more recent religious fanaticism against educating Afghanistan women. Your support goes to train and support competent teachers and programs aimed at developing the skills and knowledge necessary to develop a new generation of leaders, thinkers and workers. In addition, your charitable Afghanistan students sponsorship can bring chairs, desks, simple play equipment, hygiene kits, and generators to villages without electricity, clinics, or potable water, and build a safe nurturing center for present and future learning. Only out of such a body of children, within a community impenetrable to the violence and ignorance that has shattered Afghanistan for decades, can a new educated and engaged citizenry and nation rise.

Support the future, Afghanistan's and your own, and be a sponsor for HTAC's feisty, effective and innovative model schools.

This school highlight was written by Frances Connell, HTAC Board Member


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