Empower Afghan girls with computer skills

Like many Afghan girls of her generation, Nagina has dreamed of a better life and that has long meant finding a school that offered computer education and one day, earning a degree in computer science so she can use her education and skills to seek a productive job and help her family.  But the reality of living with six other family members and little money ever available, there has been on-going pressure from Nagina's parents for her to leave school, find a suitable husband so the family can receive short-term financial gain from the husband's family.  Nagina has always managed to convince her mother and father that she should complete her schooling, but for years, becoming computer literate has always been out of reach.

In Afghanistan, finding a school that provides computer education can be very difficult, even though the Ministry of Education has deemed computer education a requirement for high school students.  Unfortunately, many schools simply do not have the financial resources to establish even the most basic computer laboratories, leaving far too many girls without opportunities.  In other cases, many schools who do have computers are private and the tuition costs are far out of reach for most families.  Even if they were able to afford the costs, getting to these schools can often require traveling through insecure areas; a situation few Afghan families would ever consider for their daughters.  These barriers, along with her family's economic difficulties, almost derailed Nagina's dream of completing her schooling and studying the computer.

Fortunately for Nagina, she found a school that offered computer education; one of several supported by Help the Afghan Children, which was the first organization to introduce computers into Afghan public schools, and here she has thrived.  Now in 12th grade, she has learned MS Windows, Word and Excel and before she graduates, Power point presentations.  Nagina is grateful that she (along with her other classmates), can learn lessons and complete assignments for other classes on the computer.  By teaching girls real world computer applications, HTAC is preparing graduating girls to seek and obtain jobs in Afghanistan's expanding IT marketplace.

While it's true that today, more Afghan girls do attend school, family and cultural pressures often result in too many girls never finishing their education, let along developing marketable skills.  HTAC is doing its part to give Nagina (who wants to serve her country), and several thousand girls like her every year, a chance to beat the odds.