2016 appeal

Please help us raise $77,500 to support community-led development and give children and women the opportunity to break the cycle of extreme poverty

In the whirlwind of the election campaign, asylum-seekers are once again a touchstone in our political debate. One of the great things about indigo foundation is our history of actively building links with refugee communities in Australia.

Former refugees Salman Jan and Ali Reza Yunespour have been the driving force behind our education projects in Borjegai and Jirghai, Afghanistan. And Santino Yout, another former refugee, is the mainspring of our school building and teacher education project in Wedweil, South Sudan.

We have prospered because of our relationship with people who have fled conflict-ridden countries and sought asylum in Australia. Salman, Ali and Santino have made huge contributions, not only to indigo foundation but also to Australia and their home countries. We are very proud to work with them and their communities.

Girls in their new classroom at Salman e Fars school in Borjegai, Afghanistan

Both of our programs in Afghanistan and South Sudan focus on education – rebuilding schools, training teachers, improving outcomes and access to education for all children, but with a special eye to the many barriers facing girls.

In many of the communities we work with, girls are denied an education. A fair wage for safe work is a far off dream. The future for these girls is an early marriage and a life lived in chronic poverty. Nowhere is this more true than in countries like Afghanistan and South Sudan. In Afghanistan, as international troops withdraw and the world’s eyes turn away, the outlook remains bleak. Only 1 in 5 girls get to high school, let alone university.

But, with your support, we are partnering with grassroots communities to change this. We do not offer charity, we offer respect for a community’s development aspirations and the resources those communities need to achieve their goal of providing girls an education and a future. And right now, we need your support to keep working with these communities – and scale up our impact.

As we are approaching tax time, please put your trust in our partners, like the communities in Jirghai and Wedweil, and make a donation today.

Please have a read of the stories below about what has been achieved by our partner communities in Afghanistan and in South Sudan – and the plans for the coming year that we need your help to achieve.

IHHS year 10 classroom_girls

In Borjegai, Afghanistan, indigo foundation has partnered with the community local for over a decade to build schools and train teachers. And with fantastic results. The number of high school graduates has increased from zero to over 700, the national university entrance exam pass rate is over 75% – unheard of for a remote community. 20% of tertiary graduates from Borjegai are women and there are now nine trained female teachers.

As our work with the Borjegai community ends, we have started on a new journey in the neighbouring region of Jirghai. Right now, thanks to our supporters, the Jirghai community is working to rebuild Shebar High School, which has been educating 450 students in two shifts in tents and damaged shops. By August, that school will be rehabilitated, have furniture, toilets and clean water.

But there are still another 16 schools in Jirghai without proper buildings. In the coming year, we will turn our attention to Fatimeya School. But to do this we need your help to raise $21,000. Rebuilding the school, so its 400 students can have access to toilets and clean water. So they don’t have to sit on the floor in classes held in hallways. So we can boost the number of girls who can get an education.

scholarship recipients cropped

In Kabul, with your support, we provided seed-funding in 2011 to establish the Women’s Empowerment Centre (WEC), which provides scholarships to cover tuition fees so young disadvantaged women can get a university degree.

This photo shows the first cohort of young women who received indigo foundation WEC scholarships. These are women with degrees in law, economics or politics. Women who are ready to become role models and strive for positive change in Afghanistan.

In the words of Nasima Rahmani, Director of the Women’s Empowerment Centre “In my community a girl without higher education has no other choice but to marry and stay at home with her children. But our new generation is committed to education, and we think of change. Only by seeking education can change really happen; the help offered by indigo foundation changes lives.”

The women in this photo have now graduated. But right now there are girls in need of scholarships from WEC to start their studies.

All it takes is $825 to cover tuition fees for one woman for one year.

children and blackboard

In 2013 we began working with the war-devastated community of Wedweil in South Sudan – a town too small to interest large international organisations. Here, we helped the community rebuild a school building, construct the first toilets and, in January of this year, hold the first ever teacher training session in the region for 25 teachers across 11 schools. The ripple effects of that teacher training will spill out to upwards of 5,500 kids.

Student numbers at Wedweil School have already increased by more than a quarter. Children who have never been to school, or who stopped going to school at the height of conflict, are now returning.

There is still so much to do. The classrooms are crowded, textbooks are scarce and still based on the outdated Ugandan curriculum. There is no clean running water and many children turn up without having eaten.

In the coming year, with your support, we can scale up our work in Wedweil. With only an additional $7,000 the community can buy new textbooks, get clean water running to the school and establish a food garden and basic kitchen.

This year, our aim is to raise $77,500 by 30 June. This will mean our current programs can continue. And it will mean we can scale up the impact for women and children – rebuilding schools, training teachers, funding scholarships.

Please consider making an end of financial year gift to indigo foundation. Your donation – however big or small – is vital and will be life-changing:

  • $26 will buy books, pens, pencils and other school materials for one year for 13 vulnerable children impacted by HIV in Budaka, Uganda.
  • $85 will support one community-based after-school tuition centre for one month, including tutor salaries and education materials, for Dalit children in the slums of Tamil Nadu, India.
  • $110 will buy one truckload of stone to contribute to building a toilet block, with separate toilets for boys and girls at Fatimeya School in Jirghai, Afghanistan.
  • $410 will support one young woman in Kabul to study law for six months at the Gawarshad Institute of Higher Education.
  • $1,000 will fund a water pump and piping to help establish a food garden at Wedweil School in South Sudan, ensuring students, all poor, many hungry, have clean water and food.

Donations are tax-deductible.

The impact of your donation will be life-changing for the young girl in Jirghai who can now go to primary school and for the children in Wedweil who will be taught by a trained teacher and have food to keep them going at school.

Thank you for putting your trust in community-led development and thank you for being an important part of indigo foundation.

With great appreciation

Sally Stevenson (Chairperson) and Jemma Bailey (General Manager)