Join us as we embark on an ambitious project - a sustainably-designed boarding school to serve girls from insecure rural areas.
Since 2001, Sahar has worked in Afghanistan, building and repairing schools, as well as creating impactful educational programs. With a recent large school project completed, Sahar has another opportunity to work with the Afghanistan Ministry of Education(MOE) to develop additional innovative solutions for the ongoing educational challenges in the country.
During the Taliban rule, most girls’ schools throughout Afghanistan were shut down and destroyed. Despite the hard work of the Afghan government, the demand for schools still outpaces the nation’s rebuilding efforts. An additional challenge has been providing opportunities for girls in rural areas to go to school after the age of 11 or 12. At this age, many Afghan families will not allow their daughters to continue going to school unless their teachers are female. Most rural teachers are male, so the drop-out rate at this age is very high. Additionally, simply getting to and from school in a rural area can be a very dangerous trip – another reason why girls are kept home from school.The answer for many of these girls is to attend a boarding school in an urban center. Sahar, is working closely with the Afghan Ministry of Education, Seattle-based architecture firm Miller Hull and the University of Washington School of Architecture, to create a sustainably-designed boarding school. This one school can bring hundreds of girls into the city to complete high school, and could be a model for future developments throughout the country.