Photo: Afghan Peace Volunteers
Our theme for March & April 2016 is Live, Love, Learn – let’s support equal education for everyone: it’s a human right!
Following wars and violent conflicts, education is important for rebuilding communities and healing wounds. In Afghanistan, the Afghan Peace Volunteers are trying to do just that, including through their Borderfree Street Kids School.
There are an estimated 60,000 Afghan children who work in the streets of Kabul to supplement their families’ incomes. By providing monthly gifts of rice and oil to their families, the Afghan Peace Volunteers share resources for the children’s basic human needs, making it easier for the children to work for only half a day.
At the Borderfree Street Kids School, the children attend classes in Dari (the local language) maths, literacy, and nonviolence. This helps them build their community and stand up for themselves—as they’re doing in the picture above, wearing their distinctive blue scarves. For the rest of the week, the children are encouraged to go to government schools, which provide a half day of formal education.
The project has been running since 2013 with around 30 children, but expanded to 80 in 2015. This was after 80 children marched through Kabul to the doors of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and asked for a school: “their dream is to have a street kids school for 100 kids.”
The project has received support from Child Right Netherlands and Voices for Creative Nonviolence U.S. and UK, but is led by local Afghans (from across different ethnic and religious groups) who want to rebuild their country and give hope to the next generation.
Pop into Peace Hub any weekday between 11:00 and 14:30 to find out more, and send a message of solidarity.
And on Monday 21st March & Thursday 21st April we’ll be showing a live internet broadcast with the Afghan Peace Volunteers talking to supporters across the world, and sending them a message of Peace from Birmingham. Details soon!