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AFGHANISTAN / GIRL CHILD EDUCATION
STORY: AFGHANISTAN / GIRL CHILD EDUCATION
TRT: 4:06
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: DARI / NATS
DATELINE: 11 JUNE 2013, SANGBAST VILLAGE, HERAT PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN
1. Med shot, Fatima Azimi, school teacher, teaching 4th grade girls.
2. Wide shot, Fatima Azimi, school teacher, teaching 4th grade girls.
3. Close shot, tilt up, Fatima Azimi’s students reading
4. Med shot, Fatima Azimi, school teacher, teaching 4th grade girls, class in session
5. Close shot, students
6. Med shot, Fatima Azimi in the background, students writing on blackboard in the foreground
7. SOUNDBITE (Dari) Fatima Azimi, Girls School Teacher:
“I was the only educated woman here. Families would not allow their daughters to come to school, especially for the first three years. I had to go door-to-door to convince people. I had to hold meetings with parents. Slowly they began to understand the importance of girls’ education.”
8. Wide shot, girls wiping blackboard clean
9. Close shot, girls reading in classroom
10. Wide shot, Fatima Azimi reading to students
11. Close shot, girls reading
12. Wide shot, class in session at the Sayadabad School
13. Tilt up, girl in class with book
14. Med shot, Farzana and her classmate behind the desk
15. Close shot, Farzana Tanha
16. SOUNDBITE (Dari) Farzana Tanha, Student:
“I feel so happy about coming to school. It’s giving me courage, power and hope for the future. I can do this interview now whereas before I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
17. Wide shot, Farzana Tanha coming home from school
18. Med shot, Farzana’s mother behind the stove
19. Med shot, Farzana sweeping the floor, her sibling sitting on the floor
20. Tilt up, Farzana’s sweeping
21. SOUNDBITE (Dari) Zarife Tanha, Farzana’s Mother:
“She can go to school when I’m ok. But if I’m sick someone needs to feed the kids and my husband. It’s too difficult for me to do alone. Now it’s better because my younger daughter is grown up so she can help.”
22. Med shot, men sitting on foot bridge
23. Wide shot, village men sitting on a foot bridge over a stream.
24. Close shot, Hajimir Ahmad
25. Wide shot, Hajimir Ahmad, village elder, sitting in his living room and talking to other village men
26. Various shots, village elders at Hajimir’s living room
27. SOUNDBITE (Dari) Hajimir Ahmad, Village Elder:
“Before the school opened nine years ago, the situation in the village was bad. Even from my generation people were illiterate, and illiterate people like me are blind. Our kids now learn many things. Most nights they come home and teach us about different issues.”
28. Various shots, children in a village walking together to go to the community school.
29. Wide shot, girls standing together
30. Wide shot, girl and boy laying and turning bricks
31. Various shots, 13 year old Zoor Ali in class at the community school
32. SOUNDBITE (Dari) Zoor Ali, 13 years old, Child Worker:
“When I come here every morning with other boys, we have fun talking to each other and studying in the classroom. We’re together when we go back home too, talking and playing. It’s a happy place for us.”
33. Wide shot, community school.
34. Med shot, class in session at the UNICEF supported community school for working children
35. Wide shot, boys playing football outside school.
Fatima Azimi was the only literate girl in Sangbast village when she first moved here ten years ago.
Born to Afghan parents in Iran, she loved going to school.
But when her family moved back to Afghanistan, there was no school for her to go to.
So she decided to teach others.
SOUNDBITE (Dari) Fatima Azimi, Girls School Teacher:
“I was the only educated woman here. Families would not allow their daughters to come to school, especially for the first three years. I had to go door-to-door to convince people. I had to hold meetings with parents. Slowly they began to understand the importance of girls’ education.”
For nine years she has been teaching at Sayadabad Girls School, which is supported by UNICEF.
Girls education remains a major challenge in Afghanistan.
By supporting village classrooms like this, UNICEF is making education more accessible to the children who need it the most.
Students here are taught standard subjects like math, biology and English.
Today, Farzana Tanha is one of school’s prize students.
SOUNDBITE (Dari) Farzana Tanha, School Student:
“I feel so happy about coming to school. It’s giving me courage, power and hope for the future. I can do this interview now whereas before I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
But Farzana had to fight for her education.
At home her parents did not see the point of sending her to school. Her mother is illiterate and her father works odd jobs.
Neither her younger brother nor sister are being educated, and her mother says she needs Farzana at home.
SOUNDBITE (Dari) Zarife Tanha, Farzana’s Mother:
“She can go to school when I’m ok. But if I’m sick someone needs to feed the kids and my husband. It’s too difficult for me to do alone. Now it’s better because my younger daughter is grown up so she can help.”
It took the intervention of men in Sangbast village to change the fate of girls here.
Seventy-six year old village elder, Hajimir Ahmad, donated his own land to build two girls’ schools here.
He says he could not educate his daughters, but it’s not too late for his granddaughters.
SOUNDBITE (Dari) Hajimir Ahmad, Village Elder:
“Before the school opened nine years ago, the situation in the village was bad. Even from my generation people were illiterate, and illiterate people like me are blind. Our kids now learn many things. Most nights they come home and teach us about different issues.”
Though villagers in Sangbast are opening new doors for their children Hundreds of thousands of others are trapped by poverty.
In, Afghanistan 25 percent of children between 5 and 14 years of age are child labourers
13-year-old Zoor Ali has been working since he was 10, earning just over a dollar a day by lifting gravel onto trucks.
But in the mornings he attends this community school.
SOUNDBITE (Dari) Zoor Ali, 13 years old, Child Worker:
“When I come here every morning with other boys, we have fun talking to each other and studying in the classroom. We’re together when we go back home too, talking and playing. It’s a happy place for us.”
Supported by UNICEF, the school aims to give working children basic literacy and numeracy skills.
Students as old as thirteen are finally learning how to read and write here.
But just as important, they’re learning how to be children again.
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