28 June 2010 - For the last four months, 15-year-old Firouzan has been learning to read and write with 20 other women from Khale Jan, a small village on the outskirts of Herat city.

This is the second time Firouzan has received basic education. Two years ago, she also took a four month-long course organized by Herat’s education department.

All other participants are learning basic literacy skills for the first time under a programme sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The women gather in the house of a fellow community member where, seated on cushions and carpets and with small chalkboards or notebooks in their hands, they study under the supervision of Nuria, 18, their teacher who graduated from 10th grade.

Firouzan explains that her family would not let her go to school. Her uncle, Arbab (chief) Mohammad Nadir, confirms that “after a certain age, we don’t let girls go to school, it is not good.”

The Arbab is hinting at a custom, widely shared among Afghanistan’s rural population, that families with strong moral principles should take all possible measures to protect their female children. Too often this leads to a near confinement to the house or, at best, the village.

But Mohammad Nadir, the Arbab, is conscious of the benefits that minimal education will bring to the family. He describes the difficulties illiterate women may face otherwise.

“A woman who cannot read the street signs or the doctor’s name on a door might come back home with a sick child, without having him or her treated,” he says. Mohamed Nadir also explains that women may be able to bargain better at the market, or help their sons who study at school. They may also be able to read the clock and send the child to school on time.

Despite these practical gains, villagers still required another incentive to overcome their ingrained reluctance to send women to school. When the project was launched earlier, it obtained little support until the World Food Program (WFP) offered to donate food to the students and teachers.

Students now receive basic essentials such as rice, flour or oil, while the teacher receives twice the student’s amount. In this specific case Nuria, the school teacher, is the Arbab’s daughter.

Her father explains that she was pulled out of school before the completion of Grade 12 as a kind of punishment. Nuria appears obedient to her father’s decision. But she expresses hope that she may complete her education one day and start teaching in a proper school.

In all over 650 students, mostly female, are being taught literacy and vocational courses in Guzara and Karoukh districts of Herat province under a programme called the “community-based initiative.” During the vocational courses, women learn carpet weaving or embroidery, while the men are taught to weld or work metal.

Under the same programme, WHO also offers small grants for villagers to create income-generation activities. In all, 250 projects in seven villages have been sponsored.

In addition to Guzara and Karoukh the programme also covers Injil district, where literacy is carried out by another United Nations agency, UN-Habitat.

Applicants request grants of US$ 5,000 to US$ 17,000 to set up a small shop, buy a cow to sell the milk or purchase sheep to start a flock. A committee (shura) of villagers manages a fund of approximately US$ 80,000 and it reviews projects and decides whether to support a decision that must be endorsed by the district governor. The grant is then paid back in instalments – without interest – taking into account the situation of the villager.

In some villages, the community organizes a common grant to build bigger projects such as a public bath. WHO does not encourage such projects since the whole community is penalised if the project fails.

Doctor Rasooli, Head of WHO in western Afghanistan, recalls the beginning of the programme: “We started this programme during the Taliban regime. At the time, you could not find any such initiative.”

Dr Rasooli is nevertheless proud of the system in place. He admits that “since 2005, we have not received any money from our headquarters to add to the fund.”

He wishes to see the initiative spread to other districts and villages, as it did in the past: “We started in Injil to be able to properly monitor the programme and we now cover three districts”.

By Fraidoon Poya and Henri Burgard, UNAMA