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Schools

A school in Paghman. Despite holding classes in three sittings, the building is not big enough, so classes have to be held outside (or in containers).

"Please build us a school! We want to learn something!"

That was the cry that one of our staff members got to hear repeatedly as he said goodbye to the children in a village north of Kabul. It was at a time when he was discussing plans with village elders to build a girls' school.

Shelter Now has long been building schools, starting in the refugee camps in Pakistan. Education is a basic human right, that should be available to all children no matter where they live in the world. In Afghanistan it is also vital if the country's fledgling democracy is to be stabilized long-term. The schoolchildren – both girls and boys – are highly motivated. They know that they can only earn money in the future if they have been to school or have had some kind of training. When we ask them what they want to do when they grow up, they often say things like: "Pilot, engineer, doctor, lawyer, university teacher or even President"

Especially important: schools for girls

The children and young people learn reading, writing and Math with enthusiasm. Some come together in the afternoons as well, forming voluntary learning groups. The first school that Shelter Now built is already attended by a 1,000 students and is now too small. Another problem – there are twice as many boys in the school as girls.

The reason for this imbalance is that the girls often have to pass a neighboring village in order to get to the school – and many parents are not prepared to allow that. So we need to build another school just for girls directly in their village.

Provide a child with an education

Shelter Now can create a place in school for a girl or boy for just US $200.

It costs around US $200 to create a place in school for a child in Afghanistan. That is purely the building costs and does not include teaching and learning materials or the cost of paying teaching staff. Lessons are normally conducted in two sittings: half the students come in the morning, the other half in the early afternoon. Some schools even operate 3 sittings while waiting for more buildings to go up. Afghanistan still needs many more schools.

The walls are made up of precast concrete blocks that are produced directly at the site using a manually operated molding press. These blocks are able to bear the weight of a three-story building. The roofing materials along with lintels for the doors and windows are produced in advance at the nearby Shelter Now factory. In this way, it takes between 3 and 5 months to build a school.

Shelter Now also tries to furnish and equip the school and pays for a second lot of teachers so that classes can run in the afternoons.

100 new schools for the earthquake zone in northern Pakistan

Thousands of schools were destroyed in the devastating earthquake of October 8, 2005. Many schoolchildren were killed, and many others injured. In an ambitious 3-year project, Shelter Now is planning to build around one hundred new schools.

A Shelter Now school: the children are highly motivated and are proud to tell the class what they have learned.

All the necessary arrangements have been made with the Pakistani government. The schools must be built using methods suitable for an earthquake zone. Shelter Now has already had experience of building earthquake-resistant houses and schools in Afghanistan. Once a school has been built, we then pay for it to be run for the first year. Altogether, we need a little over US $65,000 per school.

The schools are being built in the areas hardest hit by the earthquake: Battagram, Mansehra, Kohistan and Kashmir.

Many children sustained serious injuries in the earthquake that have led to permanent disabilities. We are therefore planning three or four schools especially for these children. We are particularly concerned about them. In many Asian societies, as in many other cultures around the world, disabled people are often marginalized and have little or no career opportunities. Schools for disabled children are more expensive to build and cost more to maintain. Our goal is to finance these schools permanently and we hope to find a Pakistani partner organization to assist us with that.