AWRC Organization (Afghan Women Resource Centre), which cooperates with NGO ‘People in Peril’ and by which also evangelical associated school in Martin, organized during the last school year a fundraiser for building the Institute of Vocational Education in Carikar in Parwan Province, Afghanistan. We are pleased to observe the growth of a new institute.
A fund-raising project initiated by the Lutheran-associated school in Martin has continued the tradition of several years of social projects. These projects were services like serving Martin’s Lutheran church in Ukraine and serving refugees from Somalia, who were forced to leave their homes due to the civil war. In order to know more about the country country which students of Lutheran associated school desire to help, they decided to study the five themes that characterize the current situation in Afghanistan: 1) poor education, 2) poverty, 3) lack of medical care, 4) low social status of women and 5) military conflicts. Students divided these five themes into a variety of activities designed for their younger classmates. In this way, the younger students had the opportunity to learn about Afghanistan through a crossword puzzle, short theatrics, composing pictures or through knowledge competition.
Learning about a foreign country and its culture through a variety of games was the result of a month-long social project. The project concluded by handing over a symbolic check to a staff member of NGO “Person at Risk”. Students of The Lutheran-associated School in Martin managed to collect in total 1400 EUR to help in Afghanistan. Thanks to this support, the recent construction of the institute is coming to a successful finish! In a few weeks, Afghanistan boys will be able to start their higher vocational education in agriculture and girls will concentrate on management and journalism.
If you are interested in this topic, here are a few interesting facts about how teaching takes place in Afghan schools:
- Pupils and students go to school six days a week. Their free day is Friday, a country-wide day of rest for Islam, the dominant religion in this part of the world.
- In Afghanistan, there are very few schools. The number is disproportionate to the number of people who would be interested in studying. The large population of children and emphasis on education and training led to the decision to introduce tuition for 2-3 shifts during each school day.
- Subjects that children learn are the same as in Slovakia. Students, however, learn extra subjects – subjects related to the teaching of religion and foreign language. Ninety-nine percent of Afghan schools are teaching English as foreign language.
- The school year in Afghanistan is decided by the three different climatic zones. The country, is in fact, divided into winter and summer and ambiguous area! Therefore, the children in winter area in Afghanistan have long winter break, while during the summer students are sitting in the pews.
(HeHe-T <><)
