On Day of the Girl, Let’s Celebrate and Recommit to Help Girls in Afghanistan

This year, on International Day of the Girl, I’m thinking about the inspirational girls I met recently in Afghanistan, and how critical it is for the country’s future that they continue to have access to a quality education. I visited a community-based school in Parwan Province in northeast Afghanistan, where students — and teachers — dream big. Asked what they wanted to become when they grew up, all the kids raised their hands to declare their intent to become doctors or teachers. And asked what they like most about school, one eager student yelled: “All the studying!”

With violent attacks and conflict continuing to grab headlines in Afghanistan, it’s easy to forget how far women and girls have come. Just fifteen years ago, less than a million Afghan children attended school — nearly all of them boys. With critical support from the U.S., over 16,000 schools have been built and 150,000 teachers trained — more than a third women. As a result, over 9 million children today attend school and nearly half of them are girls. But we can’t let those gains slip away.

That starts by supporting incredible teachers like the ones I spoke to in Parwan. One teacher said she grew up in the local community and, thanks to a greater emphasis on girls education, was able to complete two years of college. “Now I want to serve my people,” she told me, “especially girls.” She and the other staff plan to add classrooms, a science lab and maybe even a small playground.

Listening to her, I found myself thinking how much hope and progress comes from so little. It costs about $300 to send an Afghan girl or a boy to elementary school for one year, including teacher training, classroom expenses and curriculum. Over the past decade, CARE has engaged 125,000 children in community-based schools.

Today we celebrate those gains and, importantly, recommit ourselves to supporting the dreams of the future Afghanistan — those of teachers, boys and, of course, girls.