Help Educate Women & Girls in Afghanistan

Thank you for your continued support of our work educating girls in Balkh Province, in Northern Afghanistan. Here’s the story of Zarghona Sadat of the student graduate of the early marriage Prevention program.

"I could not defend my right before coming to this program and also, I could not raise my voice against those who harassed me - especially street harassment - but I learned about my rights and how to defend my rights. I won't be silent against street harassment and injustice, because if I am silent, men think that we women are weak, while we are very capable and powerful women.”

We work in the most remote areas in Northern parts of Afghanistan, Balkh Province. The early marriage project has proven to be a great project that students really want. We continue to see student’s express extreme gratitude during the program. We have graduated 746 students. After graduation, many students encourage us to continue to do this training for other girls in additional schools. This year we added a 13th module on mental health to the EMPP. In this module, we spark conversation about mental health and provide students with tools that will help them deal with mental health issues, especially depression and trauma. As one of Sahar’s signature programs, EMPP has now gained a significant reputation in the communities that we serve. In this program, we also involve the families of the students. There are conversations with their fathers helping them to understand how important it is to educate the girls in their family. One of student’s father said: “I am so happy that they established this program for my daughter in this school, it is so good for my daughter to be aware of her rights and other important issues. Because my wife and I are illiterate, we cannot help my daughter with her lessons and other important things. But I support my daughter to go to school and continue her education. I don’t want my daughter to be illiterate like me and her mother.”

In order to better establish a feedback loop for improving the program as well as enhance quantitative and qualitative measurement systems, we are working with the students from the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy and Governance to develop a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) model for our EMPP. This model will take into account all the obstacles that we face in the field in Northern Afghanistan. Additionally, we are in process of adding an M&E specialist to our team in Afghanistan to improve our program for the girls we serve.

To date, Sahar has built, repaired, or supplied 25 schools, has impacted over 23,000 girls annually and over 250,000 since our inception. However, the need for more schools and access to education is still present. Afghanistan's need for education remains daunting with over 40% of their population of school-aged children. With your help, we can continue to provide these opportunities as we aim to make Afghanistan a safer place through education.

Thank you for your ongoing support of this program. The work wouldn't be possible without YOU championing this work.