"I Will Build a School"

Each of my trips to Afghanistan is always eventful. Of the 45 trips I've made over the last 14 years, I can't remember a single trip without an incident, a challenge, or a pleasant surprise and my April 11th trip was no exception.

My goal was to visit several of our schools, evaluate our current programs, and meet with Ministry of Education officials. Our first journey was to Kandahar Province where one of our sponsored schools, Kohak Primary School, is located. With its strict rules (about 98% of women there wear the head-to-toe veil called burqa), and greater security problems, Kandahar is different from most other provinces.

To my dismay, we were advised that visiting the school would be dangerous, not only for me, but for students and teachers as well. Just the night before, the Taliban issued an edict, asking locals to cut ties with government offices and NGOs or else. Sadly, I had no choice, but to cancel my visit to our Kohak School and return to Kabul. With students in our Paghman Primary school and return to Kabul.

More promising was my meeting with officials at the Ministry of Education, although, this too presented its own challenge. We were delighted to hear that the Ministry has determined that computer education should now be a formal part of the educational curriculum and they bly support our on-going efforts to bring computer education into schools, especially for graduating 12th grade students who will be looking for jobs in Afghanistan's emerging information technology marketplace. Unfortunately, they lack the funds to implement any expansion, which means we must continue to seek and obtain funds from foundations and the continued generosity of our individual donors.

My trip to Samangan Province was fruitful. It was great to see that our Peace, Environmental, and Computer Education programs were running well without problems and the progress reports on how these programs are making a difference to students are highly encouraging.

Finally, I visited Abdullah Bin-Omar Primary School in Paghman District (outside of the Capital City of Kabul) where I received a warm welcome from our students. We interviewed some 40 students, ages 6 to 9, for a project called "innocent wisdom". Our staff asked these students questions about love, nature, God, war, peace, and happiness and I was amazed to hear their answers and clearly saw the positive changes in these children's thoughts. In response to one question "If you could do something to make the world a better place, what would it be?" almost 85% of the students we interviewed had the same answer: "I will build a school."

Suraya Sadeed
Executive Director

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Connect & Network
It's your space

Over the last several months, we have received wonderful letters and donations from schools both in
the U.S. and Canada who have expressed their support for educating Afghan Children and HTAC. Here are just a few:

∇ The 9th grade students of the Dayton Early College Academy in Dayton, Ohio have been studying the challenges facing children in Afghanistan and want Afghan children to have the opportunity to attend school in a safe, clean, nurturing environment.

∇ The 8th grade students of Randolph Community Middle School in Randolph, Massachusetts saved lunch money for a month and donated to our cause. In Social Studies class, they have been studying Islam and thought it would be perfect to help support Afghan education.

∇ Indian Rock elementary School students in York, Pennsylvania wanted to be a part of the work we do and provided a contribution.

∇ Students at Ecole Varsity Acres School in Calgary, Alberta-Canada held an our T-shirt raffle as part of an Afghan awareness project and raised money for our programs.

∇ Students at Brevard County Schools in Viera, Florida participated in pennies for peace campaign for Afghan children, raising thousands of dollars and graciously earmarking these funds to help pay for our educational programs.

Because of the increasing interest among students and teachers in schools across the country to learn about Afghanistan and our work, we are in the process of designing school blogs in our website to partner with as many schools as possible.

The blog is called “Your Space”. Our goal is to connect, and network with U.S. schools and persuade them to explore possibilities and establish cultural exchanges with Afghanistan schools. U.S. schools can learn more about Afghanistan culture, yet Afghan girls and boys in sponsored schools can get better globalization education in Afghanistan.

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“No Place for Hate”

On March 17th, 2007, HTAC’s Executive Director, Suraya Sadeed, was the featured speaker at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School in Plymouth Meeting, PA, as part of the school’s diversity awareness program. The program topic was “No Place for Hate”. The event was attended by over 800 students, faculty, school administrators, and sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League of Southeastern Pennsylvania as well as Independence Blue Cross.

Ms. Sadeed provided the audience with a geographic, historical, and political background of Afghanistan, leading to and after the events of September 11, 2001. She concluded her presentation by calling for the global community (as well as students, teachers, parents, and communities throughout the U.S.) to help Afghanistan make the long-term investment toward the education of Afghan children. It is through this investment, she explained, that will facilitate the best road toward peace and prosperity in Afghanistan.

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What is a Peace Room?

We believe that the long-term solution to violence (which Afghanistan has experienced continuously for almost 30 years), is to expose children – from the earliest grades up – to a new way of living in the world and learning the value of striving for peaceful solutions to problems.

For several years now, we have been providing peace education in our schools. While our peace education program introduces students to the concept of peace and key principles related to responsible character-building (e.g. being truthful, being patient, dealing with anger, fear, and sadness, asking for forgiveness, etc.), our peace centers (or peace rooms) are welcoming, stimulating, and safe places where students can apply what they have learned in class to work on meaningful projects related to peace and resolve their differences in non-violent means.

Each peace room is managed by two trained teachers who are aided by trained student peer mediators.
Their job is to serve as facilitators in resolving problems between students through role play, consultation, and mediation techniques. Students who are experiencing a conflict come to the peace room knowing that someone will be there to listen to them, and help them work through their conflict in a positive, non-violent way. Peace Rooms also offer students the opportunity to create drawings, write poems, role play with puppets, and engage in other projects. Peace Rooms also have drawings, letters, even quilts from students and schools from the United States to remind students here that children in other parts of the world also desire peace.

Since initiating this program in 2002, our teachers have seen remarkable changes in students’ behaviors (including the significant decrease of conflict situations in the classroom and harassment of girls), and these positive changes carry over to the families of children and the community as well.

By introducing students to concepts of peace at an early age, we hope that our students will develop into adults who can work together in rebuilding Afghanistan in ways that rely on peaceful, rather than violent solutions to conflict.

Gandhi once said “If we are to have real peace in this world, we shall have to begin with the children”.

Meet our Students

With each edition of our “Voice of Innocence” newsletter, we continue to introduce you to some of the many students who attend our schools and participate in our educational programs. Because of your continued interest and support, HTAC is proud to have you meet and connect with more of these wonderful children.

My name is Halima. I am 6 years old and attend first grade at Rokhshana School. My father is a cleaner and my mother is a house worker. I have two sisters, both aged 2. My favorite subject in school is math and I like our Head Master. At home, I help take care of my sisters and I enjoy writing. I wish to become a Head Master when I grow up.

My name is Mhod Amin. I am 10 years old and attend fourth grade at Rokhshana. Because my father died, my mother has taken responsibility for our household. I have two older brothers. My favorite subject is studying the Quran. What I like most about school is our facility. At home, one of my responsibilities is to buy and bring home household items from the bazaar. I enjoy football (soccer), and my career goal is to become an office manager. I wish for a clean and green Afghanistan.

My name is Nazesh. I am 10 years old and attend fourth grade at Rokhshana. I have two brothers and one sister. My favorite subject is studying Dari and I enjoy the school lessons given by our teacher. At our house, my major responsibility is home organizing. One day, I hope to become a doctor.