Today is my presentation for the fellows. So far, Ana Paula Hernandez from Mexico, Shba Cahndran from India, Marvin Rees from the UK, and Alexy Navalny from Moscow have given their presentations. All have shown great success both in their works and in crossing them to the fellows. Today is mine and Diana Tsui from Hong Kong.
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I have some short notes in mind: a brief introduction of myself; a picture of my country and its contemporary history; and then my vision and works at Marefat. I will give more chance to the questions of the fellows.
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Three main snapshots in my country’s ongoing image: political instability; extreme poverty; tribal culture and customs.
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People in my country are suffering from the lack of trust. Firstly the Communists came with big promises that will be fulfilled by the government. They failed and put the country in dark bloody disasters. Then Islamists came showering people with all their subjective claims and abstract concepts and system of values. They also proved evil.
Now, democracy and civil norms of life is being imported to the country. It is appealing, but with less room on the culture and social structure of the community, it is also facing great challenges. If situation goes the same as it is now, the country will be plunged back to the anarchy and fragmentation.
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Our experience is based on the current realities of the ground. We are optimistic, but not unrealistic. People should regain their trust. It is difficult but there is no alternative. For the time being every thing is dependant on the foreign aids and assistance. Tomorrow the situation will change. The international community will decide to decrease its attention to Afghanistan. What is going to happen then?
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Education is the main key to help people discover themselves. There are some key points:
1) people should regard education as their own prime need;
2) people should regard education as a long-term necessity not a short-term project;
3) people should invest on education based on their own homegrown resources, not merely on foreign aids and assistance;
4) people should let their boys and girls like to get education;
5) civic education should be included in the whole curricula of the schools;
6) culture of violence and hatred should strongly be addressed and talked about;
7) every bits of education should be translated into practical impressions so as the people should find the tangible benefits of going to school and having books on their hands.
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We started our school in Pakistan at the peak of Civil War and dark rule of Islamist parties and the Taliban. We drafted textbooks of our own. Marefat became the education shelter for more than 6000 students in three main cities of Pakistan: Rawalpindi, Attock, and Peshawar. By the fall of the Taliban we moved to Kabul and started everything from the zero. All our students were 35 in a four-room bombed-out muddy building. Our asset was hardly more than 35000 Pakistani Rupees, less than $$600.
Our first step was talking with the community. We encouraged them to not only send their kids, boys and girls, to school but also contribute in their education too.
We gradually succeeded in our goal. The trust of the community along with the motivation of the staff that we had, helped Marefat to flourish and now, after seven years, we have more than 2500 students, 102 teachers, and have sent five rounds of our graduates to the university with nearly 97% success. Tens of our students have got scholarships in different countries. Hundreds more have become successful contributors to their family breadwinning group.
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Above all, Marefat has succeeded in developing a new vision among the community. The poverty-stricken ethnically suppressed Hazara community, is now proud of having their kids in school where humanism, democracy, human rights, social studies, liberal interpretation of the faith is part of its regular curricula. Last year, a group of fanatical clerics drafted a controversial law which violated most of the women rights. Marefat students were among the first groups to oppose that law and launched a protest against that going to parliament. At the same day, the fanatical clerics stormed the school called for my execution and burning of the school. They issued decrees and staged public instigations through all the mosques. But none of these attempts could harm our social prestige and credibility. We continued our school just one day after the attack. No more than three months later, the pressure on the president came to an encouraging end: eighteen articles including one whole chapter was totally removed for the law, and around 72 amendments were applied to that. This is a success and a great development on the ground.
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Still we have big challenges ahead. The democratic growth is nascent and highly vulnerable. Institutional guarantee for the developments are badly missing. Government is not only corrupt but also alien to the ongoing changes of the community as well as all over the world.
Politics in my country is strongly based on ethnocentric assumptions. Due to that no one cares about the harm that Taliban will pose to the civil development and human rights of the people. They mostly think about the return of the totalitarian power. Besides all our works, we have to be cautious of this threat too.
