I recently visited my native Afghanistan in March-April 2010. I left my country during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when I was 16.
My journey to my birthplace, Kabul, was an amazing one. The changes were unbelievable. Signs of the devastation left by decades of war were still inescapably visible.
But there was hope. Best of all, I found my people more resilient and more determined than ever.
Amazingly, the Zoo in Kabul was still there.
I visited my old school, Habibia High School, along the famous Dar-ul-Aman Road. It used to be a sprawling symbol of the country’s modernisation drive. I had heard stories of how little remained of our school building. Our locality was a frontline in the civil war that followed the Soviet departure. I felt ecstatic when I found my old school back in great shape, thanks to the Indian Government’s efforts to rebuild it recently.
The soccer ground where I used to play for my local team remained the same. I didn’t expect much greenery but amazingly it didn’t look much different to the mid 80s. It was an amazing experience. I opted for refuge from the 100s of students around to savor the moment in private, and for a few short moments I managed just that.
From the soccer ground, to the East, the Sher Darwaza mountain stood rambunctiously tall and together with the Asmayee mountain still dominated the Kabul geography. I recalled the moment of one very early, cold morning in a taxi in Kabul, fleeing the Soviet occupation and on our way to an unknown future in Peshawar, when I looked at the Sher Darwaza and promised with a tear rolling down my cheek to return home one day. I was 16 then.
I had kept a promise. At least.
I had heard stories of the destruction of Kabul. So to witness some reconstruction was heartening. Maybe I was looking at things with a minimalist eye. You must expect absolute minimum when you are in Afghanistan for only then will you begin to fathom and appreciate what our country and people have gone through in the last 30 years.
I saw an unwavering determination in the eyes of my young countrymen and women to attain education despite the many difficulties. There were not enough schools, colleges or universities in the country.
It reminded me of my days when I lived in Pakistan as a refugee in the late 1980s where education opportunities were few and far between. I was reminded of the days when I would walk more than 8 kilometers every day to my American-sponsored English language course. The American International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) English Program enabled me to later attend a journalism course and become the editor of its monthly newspaper. The opportunity opened the doors for me to in 1989 become part of one of the world’s most prestigious journalism fellowships, the American Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships, where I ended up working for the Boston Globe and the Charleston Daily Mail.
I would have little education today if it was not for IRC’s English language program. I know the importance of English language in contexts like Afghanistan and Pakistan firsthand. Being proficient in English in Afghanistan is far more important than having an Afghan university degree.
This is why I founded HAE. I would like HAE to provide the same opportunity to the young Afghan men and women that I was given many years back, one that changed my life.
I need your help to put this vision into practice. It must become a collective vision of all educated Afghans.
I want to devote large parts of the rest of my life to bringing near-free and modern education to young Afghan men and women.
I spent a lot of time in Kabul during my recent trip researching the overburdened pubic education system. The curriculums were dated. There remain big gaps in the standards of the mostly English-medium elite private schools, that few can afford, and the public sector.
I met many students, teachers and civil servants. I spent many days in the Afghan Ministry of Education and Ministry of Higher Education. I was mightily heartened by the reaction I got to my programme from students, teachers and employees of the Government ministries that I met. One young employee of the Ministry of Education volunteered to work for free for HAE to assist me get certification for its latter stages of education from the Afghan Government. He was so excited by the opportunity for Afghans to have access to near-free, modern education that he won’t let me go! He wanted to know everything about it.
My vision is to create intensely work-focused education in Afghanistan in the areas of English language, Information Technology (IT) and vocational diploma level education in health care, civil engineering, business administration and management studies. I hope that a minimum of 50% of the education recipients will be Afghan women.
Please join hands with me to collectively make HAE a success story in Afghanistan where there is little to celebrate these days.
Afghanistan deserves its place among modern nation-states. And young Afghan men and women deserve a chance to change the destiny of their nation. This, I believe, can best be achieved via the medium of modern education.
Please help in any way you can.
Yours sincerely
Shaukat Zamani
