The Education for the Afghan Children (EAC)
Introduction
The Education for the Afghan Children (EAC) is a non-profit/grassroots organization established in October of 2017 to build primary schools and health centers for Afghan girls and boys inside Afghanistan. EAC is registered with the United States Department of Treasury, Internal Revenue Services (IRS) under 501(c). In Afghanistan, EAC is registered with the Afghan Ministries of Education, Health, Planning and Foreign Affairs.
Goals
Our Long Term goal is to build, primary schools in Ghazni Afghanistan and providing a healthy and safe environment for a community’s children and a place where they can learn the skills they need to become productive and peaceful adults
Challenge
Afghanistan is a country of with approximately 23 million people. After three decades of war and devastation has left Afghanistan as one of the most impoverished countries in the world. Due to the war and the lack of healthcare facilities Afghanistan has high maternal and child mortality rates and a meager literacy rate. The number of civilian deaths in the Afghan war has reached a record high, continuing an almost unbroken trend of nearly a decade of rising casualties. As of August 2017, more than 121,331,000 civilians are estimated to have died violent deaths as a result of the war. Many Afghans dealing with ill health and war wounds find it challenging to get to hospitals and clinics because violence makes roads unsafe.
The war has exacerbated the effects of poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, lack of access to health care, and environmental degradation on Afghans’ health. Tadamichi Yamamoto, the head of the UN’s Afghanistan mission, said: “The human cost of this ugly war in Afghanistan loss of life, destruction, and immense suffering – is far too high.
Education can break the cycle
How vital it is for Afghan girls to get an education is illustrated by the health statistics of Afghan women. The average age of a woman in Afghanistan is 44 years. Maternal mortality is one of the highest in the world by 45%. Educating girls is a key to solving this formidable problem. Science has proven that there is a direct correlation between women’s health and their level of education. Girls without schooling either get married or sold out at an early age. They get pregnant at an age where their body is not yet ready for it. And they know nothing about hygiene or about how to care for their children. Practically all women have experienced the loss of a child because of diseases, which could have been avoided if they had had the necessary knowledge; therefore Afghanistan has 60% infant mortality rate.
The importance of educating women
Education is unquestionably the fundamental basis of social work in the community. Education offers a bright future to us all. Access to education is a right of every human being, particularly women, irrespective of race, family, language, social standing, etc. Education represents a change to and an advance in the mental and social ability to investigate, think and practice. Three decades of conflict devastated Afghanistan’s education systems and institutions. Compromised by wars and conflict that have lasted for more than thirty years, Afghanistan’s education system remains the most fragile. In the southern Afghanistan community, nearly 90% of the population is illiterate.
The Afghan people and the international community hoped that development of the education sector would serve for the long-term transformation of the country and help the Afghans get out of poverty and misery. Proper schooling of the young generation would help a transition from conflict and instability to peace, welfare, and stability.
Unfortunately, their hope vanished at infancy. The protracted conflict in Afghanistan deprives a significant portion of the Afghan under-age children to go to school and fails the government’s long-term development objectives. A considerable portion of the international aid funneled for development of critical public and government sectors in Afghanistan was spent for development of the country’s education sector, but in a more substantial region in Afghanistan, not a single school has been build in the last 17 years. The problem of corruption in the education sector in Afghanistan appears to be significant. According to The International Institute for Education Planning (IIEP), and the Education Ministry of Afghanistan, it is the fourth worst affected country after South Sudan, Niger, and Sudan. Furthermore, The United States inspector general reported to the United States Congress; there are 1200 ghost schools (schools only on papers) were built in Afghanistan with “Ghost teachers.”
Our Objectives
The prime objective of this project is to build a primary school for girls in boys in the village of Janabad, the province of Ghazni Afghanistan where I donated 20 acres of land to build an elementary school. To be successful, it must be supplied, have qualified teachers, be fully supported by its community, and become fully sustained by its community. This proposed project aims at harnessing strong local support from community elders, Imams of the Mosques and former community leaders. It will also require secure communication and information media involvement to disseminate social inclusion values to all sectors
What makes EAC so unique?
We have successfully established local council of elders; the elder of the community will oversee all the development projects. Support, from the community elders, is vital for establishing any projects in the tribe culture in Afghanistan. We have that assuring support for the tribe elders for establishing primary school and health centers in Ghazni Afghanistan. We have a letter from the Taliban and the Afghan government that they will not harm our project. This kind of support has never been provided by any other organization in Afghanistan.
Specific Activities:
Establishing a school for Boys and girls: In coordination with the elders of the community in Ghazni, Afghanistan, we formed a committee between them. The five-member board will be in charge of the construction of the building and establish the classrooms. Initially, we will construct 12 rooms for class. The primary school will be from the First grade to Sixth grade. The school will accommodate both girls and boys. We estimate approximately 500 student’s enrolments this might increase with time.
Healthcare facilities: There are two major health problems confronting the people of Afghanistan that are severely impacting the health status of the population: (1) High Maternal and Neo-Natal Mortality due primarily to lack of skilled maternal health care services, and (2) High Child Morbidity and Mortality due to five preventable illnesses. (3) Expand access to quality health care services based on the Basic Package of Health Services in health facilities and through community based health care; (4) Improve the capacity of individuals, families, and communities to protect their health through improved knowledge and health practices; and (5) strengthen health systems at national, provincial, and district levels to enhance capacity to plan, manage and allocate resources. Due to the facts that the region has very high mortality rate, we have to give top priority to midwives training. We will train 10 to 12 midwives per village, to serve 250,000 people, we need to build training facilities that will be used for midwives training, once we trained midwives, some of those midwives will be further trained to be a nurse, in these institutions.
To realize these objectives, we are the only organization that has support from community elders, and parties to the conflict, the Taliban, and the Afghan government. As the non-governmental community-based organization, we will also seek the cooperation of the other organization with no strength attach to the underlying policy of our organization.
Timeline for the proposal: An indicative timeframe for the activities to be implemented during the project is shown below.
- October 2017-March 2018 Rising fund to start the initial construction of the building.
- March-June 2018 Beginning the construction phase of the school
- July-August 2018 Starting the enrolment of students from four villages,
- September 2018 Beginning the construction midwife’s centers
Outputs
The proposed project is a modest effort in providing a critical need related to the education of millions of children, youth, and adults, particularly girls and women, who are not or have not been enrolled in the formal school system. The project intends to provide a first-hand account of issues and challenges related to planning and management of health center and midwives training centers. In particular, the results and outcomes of this undertaking, linking both upstream and immediate implementation, will include The preparation of large-scale project and programs proposals which are likely to attract and mobilize sufficient funds and which will be based on (i) building a similar school in another area of the same district. An in-depth analysis of problems and issues related to access and quality of girls and women education and innovative initiatives to be taken for their integration in the mainstream of schooling;
BUDGET
- Construction material for a school $10,000
- Heavy equipment needs for construction truck and bulldozer. $20,000
- Building and day labor $10,000
- Midwives training center $10,000
- Books material and teacher salaries $20,000
- Total $70,000
(These are preliminary estimates and are open for revision based on the negotiations with the national authorities and the current prices and inflationary trends in Afghanistan)
Beneficiaries
Poor and vulnerable, especially girls and women, please help us support education for 5,000+ girls in Ghazni Province Afghanistan.
