Schools are high on the agenda

Bringing schools, roads, and drinking water to Afghanistan’s villages

The presence of a good school in the village is always a high priority for returning refugees. Many refugee families have had the benefit of education for their children while they were away. On returning home, they want to see their children continue to study so that they can improve their economic prospects in life.

When Mohammad Yousuf returned home to Afghanistan after spending more than 12 years as a refugee in Iran, the first thing he wanted was a better life for his children and grandchildren. “When we heard that Afghanistan was finally free and peace had returned, I brought my family home,” says the 65 year old patriarch of a large extended family.

But, Yousuf’s ancestral village in western Herat province had suffered greatly during the decades of conflict. “We faced a lot of problems when we returned,” Yousuf recalled. “There was no water, no road, no electricity, and no school or health center.”

Despite these difficulties, the children’s future was the greatest concern for all the 500 families in the village. The nearest school was very far away. The younger children took almost two hours to walk there. Because of the dangers, the girls had to be escorted by a male family member each time they went to school and back. “What was worse, twelve children died because of the summer heat, or were killed in traffic accidents over the past two years,” Yousuf says. So, when the National Solidarity Program (NSP) asked the villagers what they wanted most, school was their first priority.

Now, almost four years after returning home, all the children in Yousuf’s family are in school. “We have a school in the village for both boys and girls, our homes have electricity, and there is no shortage of clean drinking water,” Yousuf says. “All the children attend classes regularly, especially those who couldn’t go to school earlier because of the distance.”

Yousuf hopes that an education will help his grandchildren to earn good money living at home where their forefathers have lived for generations. All his savings from years as a laborer in Iran have been spent on rebuilding the family home. The extended family now survives on the small income from a shop in the city that is run by one of Yousuf’s sons, while the other son brings in a meager wage as a laborer.