Afghanistan

Real lives

Hora Jalali Girls’ School opens its doors to more students in 2003

Not long ago, the Hora Jalali Girls’ School in Charikar, a town 35 kilometres north of Kabul on the edge of Afghanistan’s battle-scarred Shomali plain seemed a relic of the past. It was shut down under the Taliban regime, which banned education for girls and fell into disrepair. The grounds around the school were mined and two of its classrooms were bombed in an air raid. Few ever thought the school would operate again.

After the demise of the Taliban and the establishment of the Interim Administration, the ban on girls’ education was lifted. In spite of its decrepit condition, the Hora Jalali Girls’ School re-opened in 2002, but it could not accommodate all of the girls who wanted to attend because it simply did not have enough space.

In an effort to help more girls attend school, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the French non-governmental organization Amitie Franco-Afghane, the World Food Programme, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education and local residents have undertaken a $50,000 rehabilitation programme to repair the Hora Jalali school and increase its capacity by 50 per cent for the 2003 school year. In addition, the school is constructing a teacher-training centre to train teachers from surrounding schools.

Teams of local contractors have been working for the past six months to repair the roof, rebuild the destroyed classrooms, replace windows and doors, improve the water and sanitation facilities and de-mine the grounds.

Din Mohammad, one of the carpenters building window frames for Hora Jalali has four daughters who attend the school. “I see the difference in them. Every day they are learning new things; everyday I see that knowledge shining in their eyes,” he says.

The rehabilitation of Hora Jalali has also brought much needed employment to the area, providing work for scores of local carpenters, masons, plumbers and engineers, most of whom are confident that this will be the first of many contracts.

“This is just the beginning,” said site supervisor Nasir Ahmad. “This work has gone so well, the authorities are so pleased with us, we may be asked to start work on 60 more schools in this region.”

Ahmad has good reason to be optimistic. More than 1.7 million refugees returned to Afghanistan in 2002, many to the Shomali Plain area. More than twice the expected number of children enrolled in school across the country in 2002. School buildings were in such short supply that UNICEF supplied 8,000 tents to provide additional temporary classroom space.

In 2003, UNICEF plans to rehabilitate 200 primary schools in a partnership with the United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS) as well as provide the country’s 4,000 primary schools with safe water supplies. It also plans to install sanitation facilities in at least 1,500 primary schools.