Afghanistan : Kabul
Partner: Women’s Empowerment Centre/Gawharshad Institute of Higher Education
(Project established 2011)
This new partnership builds on our long term commitment to contribute to the improvement of women’s education in Afghanistan. Eight years ago indigo foundation started a partnership with Borjegai village in the mountainous Hazarajhat region and with Rotary to build educational opportunities for the village’s children. There are now 9 schools in Borjegai including a 750 student girls’ high school and increased community understanding of the value of girls’ education is such that many families are encouraging girls to pursue tertiary studies. But the story always begins with access and most young women in Afghanistan still need to surmount huge financial and cultural barriers to access quality higher education.
indigo foundation’s decision to provide financial and technical support to Gawharshad Institute to support development of the Women’s Empowerment Centre is based on alignment of its own goal of community development, its key development areas of human rights and education and a shared commitment to improve education for women in Afghanistan. indigo foundation’s three year commitment will provide up to $10,000 per year financial support and additional technical support to build the capacity of the Centre which has a specific mandate to support the Institute’s female students and promote women’s access to higher education.
Gawharshad
Institute of Higher Education (GIHE) is a non-profit coeducational tertiary institute established in 2010, with funding from the Norwegian Government, to provide affordable quality education in law, political science, economics and management, disciplines essential to building a modern governance infrastructure in Afghanistan. GIHE was founded by Dr Sima Samar, the well-known human rights activist, Nobel Prize nominee and current head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. The director and driving force of the Women’s Empowerment Centre , Nasima Rahmani, will be familiar to some of indigo foundation supporters as a former UN Women Australia IDP peace scholar and women’s rights activist.
GIHE strongly believes that by implementing positive gender discrimination policies at the Institute it can make a significant contribution to women’s empowerment in social, economic and political spheres in Afghanistan. It therefore gives priority to provision of space and opportunity to female applicants and has a specific mission to foster and encourage young Afghani women into tertiary education.
With many female students facing significant financial and cultural barriers in pursuing higher education the priority of the Women’s Empowerment Centre is to establish a scholarship program to support the tuition fees of the many disadvantaged female students wishing to enter GIHE. Most of indigo foundation’s financial support will initially be directed towards the scholarship program and other activities to support the female students. Although the scholarship program only focuses on part of the access issue it is hoped that combined with other forms of support from WEC such as counselling, mentoring and tutoring it will give some young women the opportunity to complete a university degree. However we will also be exploring with our partner ways we can provide technical support to the Women’s Empowerment Centre as it builds its capacity and sustainability as a leading centre on women’s issues in a very difficult environment.
Thanks to the efforts of Libby Lloyd and Ros Strong, both past presidents of UN Women in Australia (formerly UNIFEM) we already have a group of keen supporters for this very important project. The first tranche of $6000 has been sent and 11 young Afghani women have been able to start their tertiary studies at GIHE. Many come from sole parent families or from families where boys’ education is prioritised.
We look forward to building a long and rewarding building relationship with Nasima, her colleagues and the students at GIHE and sharing news of their achievements with indigo foundation supporters.
Project
Manager/ MC Representative:
Deborah Raphael
Australian
Coordinating committee:
Libby Lloyd and Ros Strong
For more information contact Deborah.Raphael@indigofoundation.org
