Ensuring Afghan children are safe and in school

Dear GlobalGiving supporters,

Thank you for your fantastic support for Street Child’s work to ensure children are safe, in school, and learning in Afghanistan. Street Child is now working in 15 different provinces across Afghanistan. We are going where others won’t to provide education and humanitarian support, where and when needed.

In Afghanistan, an estimated 8 million children and adolescents are out of school, including 1.1 million girls who have recently been banned from attending secondary school.  Afghanistan is the only country in the world that denies access to education based on gender. 

Through Street Child’s essential education programmes, including in hard-to-reach, remote districts, we support over 50,000+ students in the country daily, and represent 13.65% of all community-based education centres in Afghanistan. 

We’re helping many students, especially girls, access education for the very first time. Girls face increased risks during times of conflict and instability, and curtailing access to education exacerbates these risks; particularly sexual and gender-based violence, and early marriage.  Gendered social norms are increasingly keeping girls out of school too—especially if classroom places are limited. Boys still get preferential treatment over their sisters and female peers.

We prioritise education because it is transformational. Increasing access to education not only supports girls to acquire foundational skills but also empowers girls and those around them to recognise and report instances of abuse through project teachers, social workers and other trusted community members. As such, our mission has been to ensure children across Afghanistan, especially girls, obtain at a minimum basic literacy and numeracy and can learn in safe, inclusive environments.

Thanks to your fantastic support, we’ve been able to reach more girls and boys in Afghanistan to be safe, in school, and learning. Our key recent updates in recent months include:

• In Uruzgan province, in October, we were also able to launch community-based informal accelerated learning classes for 14,715 out-of-school children – 6,639 were girls and 8,076 were boys.
• In the same month, we increased access to formal education for 3,325 children in Uruzgan province, including 1,980 girls and 1,345 boys.

• Our social workers received training on coaching and mentoring teachers. They regularly monitor the classes we teach, and coach teachers to ensure they can provide quality inclusive education to all children in their classrooms.

If you would like to learn more, the attached document 'One Year on From the Fall of Kabul" is packed with information about our work ensuring children are safe, in school, and learning in Afghanistan. 

Thank you for your support for our work in Afghanistan! 

• Afghanistan_One_year_on_from_the_fall_of_Kabul.pdf (PDF)