Creating a New Future: Girls and Women’s Education in Afghanistan

This International Women’s Day, World Food Program USA is proud to announce three new grantees for the Catherine Bertini Trust Fund for Girls’ Education: Lamia Afghan Foundation, Razia’ Ray of Hope Foundation, and School of Leadership Afghanistan.

Hunger affects women and girls disproportionately: They make up 60% of the world’s hungriest people. This disparity is due almost entirely to unequal access to education, resources, and tools for personal and economic success. The Catherine Bertini Trust Fund for Girls’ Education works to change this by empowering women and girls with the knowledge, training, and leadership skills necessary to achieve food security and reach their full potential.

Lamia Afghan Foundation

The Lamia Afghan Foundation is an all-volunteer nonprofit dedicated to helping the children and disadvantaged people of Afghanistan by providing humanitarian aid, educational opportunities, and vocational training that will create opportunities for the next generation of Afghans that were unavailable or out of reach for their parents.

Recently the Lamia Afghan Foundation (LAF) successfully implemented a home-school model for girls in the eastern city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. This model is implemented in close collaboration with the Community Development Councils (CDCs) on the outskirts of the city. The community elders provide space for classrooms and select female teachers who have completed grade ten or twelve.  Teachers are given intense, short-term training on teaching methodology.

In this model, students and teachers are provided with books, stationery, a whiteboard and other classroom items. The LAF volunteers work closely with the community elders to establish the home schools. Once a school is established, a female coordinator will visit these schools on a regular basis and provide progress updates to the project coordinator.

Speaking about the grant, President & CEO John Bradley, Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force (Retired) said, “This generous grant will allow us to have ten schools for girls in a protected and safe environment. They will be able to study beyond the sixth grade even though the Taliban has said that is the limit for public schooling for girls. We have educated tens of thousands of girls in the fourteen years of our foundation work. The Taliban may be in control of the government now, but the education they received cannot be taken from these girls.”