10x10: The Girls Education Project

It was my first glimpse of Afghanistan: a man prostrate on the ground, praying beside a hollow-eyed merchant selling flat bread; barbed wire, almost like a child’s tight curls, cascading over walls, over street partitions, everywhere; bright neon-lit venues where families pay hundreds of dollars they don’t have for elaborate weddings; and women, some with heads covered in black, eyes just visible…some in blue burkas, no eyes at all…their faces down, scurrying into hidden spaces.

Kabul International Airport

As I wrote previously, the status of these women hangs in the balance in the face of an uncertain future for Afghanistan. We believe that Afghanistan, or any country for that matter, cannot experience its full potential unless the female citizenry experience theirs. And that begins with equal access to quality education for all children. Empowered girls become empowered women who invest in their families and communities.

That’s the story we hope to discover and tell here in Afghanistan. And that’s what brought me to Kabul today. I’m in transit to the northeastern Warsaj region to scout for the 10×10 film and hopefully discover the one girl whose story will represent the potential of this troubled land.

I’m joined by the wonderful Dr. Sarah Fane who will be 10×10′s guide in Afghanistan these next few weeks. Fane fell in love with Afghanistan in her twenties when she worked as a doctor along the northern Pakistan border delivering babies and other urgent medical care there.  After returning to England a few years later, marrying and having four children of her own, Fane started a non-profit called Afghan Connection which has built dozens of schools in the northeastern part of the country with the help of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA).  Our team could not be in better hands.

My simple, but immaculate room in the SCA compound

After landing in Kabul, Dr. Fane and I are driven to the Swedish Committee compound in the city. A real “compound” it is.  We pass through one guarded gate, then another. What appears to be a metal wall suddenly parts before us, and two men with machine guns usher us in to a small, surprisingly peaceful courtyard.  This will be our home in Kabul until heading onward to the Warsaj District.

To understand more about the current situation for Afghan women, read 10×10 Advisory Board member Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s new Daily Beast article, Women of the World Unite! where she argues that a democratic Afghanistan won’t work unless Afghan women are involved in the peace process.

Links:

• http://10x10act.org/blog/