GIRLS' EDUCATION

I believe my work for girls’ education in Tajikistan has been remarkable given the uphill battle I fight daily in a traditional society where it is challenging for girls to reach even secondary school. Despite this, I have successfully worked with girls from rural, underprivileged backgrounds by building trust with parents when I launched an all girls group. Once I won trust in the community, I started gradually mixing girls with boys to foster gender balance in my classroom. My first female students have become trailblazers in the community, through their confidence and their willingness to share knowledge with other girls in the villages. Both parents and students see me as an instructor who cares about the future of the community and its members. I dedicate my life to education and to giving young people in Rasht Valley opportunities for a brighter future. 

1. Small grant from the U.S. based NGO Bridges to Tajikistan, 2015

The youth of Rasht district do not know the advantages of young leadership programs and trainings and also they are not aware of how the trainings or programs can help them in order to live long as a strong leader. People from the remote and conservative area think that young people are not talented enough to be leaders in their communities. Goals and roles of the young people are not clearly defined. Youth do not have well-developed plans to become successful. It also needs time and resources. Another problem facing education is the lack of academic hours to conduct extracurricular classes. The school system is based on certain number of hours, the list of required subjects is the same for everybody, and most pupils do not have a choice of other subjects. It is also difficult to develop the volume of extracurricular classes.

This project designed to create Leadership Development Club for Girls (LDCG) and conduct a numberof educational seminars and courses for youth and promote and enhance their quality of life, and enable them to be effective leaders in their schools and communities. The project focused more on rural young people of Rasht district. The project was a small step toward giving youth the opportunity to be moreactive in their communities. They will be motivated to look foror create other opportunities, and they will look for ways to strengthen equality and democracy within their society.

The following themes accomplished during the project period:

• Leadership and volunteering

• Women and Gender Issues, Rights and Equality

• Health and Family Education

• Teaching Life Skills

• Environment

• Sewing

• After school tutoring

• Female Speaker Program

Leadership 

Sewing training

Peer to peer training on human rights (TOT)

What is debate?

How to debate?

Female Speaker Program

Volunteering

Project Goal:

The project designed to create Leadership Development Club for Girls (LDCG) along with many other youth development activities and to assist, enlighten, encourage, and empower them by providing different training and courses that will promote and enhance the quality of life forthemselves and their communities, enabling them to be effective leaders in their schools and communities

Direct Beneficiaries:

• 20 students for leadership and volunteering program

• 20 young girls for sewing course

• 20 students for women’s rights, gender issues, and domestic violence

• 20 students for environmental program

• 20 schoolchildren for after school program

2. Alumni Small Grants 2015, US Embassy, Tajikistan

The goal of this project was  introduce participants to a wide range subjects about women’s rights and types, situations, signs, prevention of domestic violence and the reasons that women stay in abusive relationships.

Direct Beneficiaries:
45 school girls, aged 15 to 17, from five villages surrounding Navdi Jamoat (Community Center)

Visit to PO Nisso to talk about environment 

3. Alumni Small Grants 2014, US Embassy, Tajikistan

This project’s goal was to create a Girls Empowerment Club, and several educational seminars for youth were conducted, thereby enhancing their quality of life and enabling them to be effective leaders in their schools and communities. It used training sessions to educate ten bright, talented and motivated girls, who selected as trainers for their peers. These girls gave presentations in their schools and other remote areas of Rasht district through a peer-to-peer training program designed to reach more beneficiaries. This project represents a small step toward giving girls the opportunity to take a more active role in their communities. In the future, they will be motivated to look for and create opportunities for others within their communities. 

The following themes were addressed during the project period:

·  Women’sRights;

·  GenderEquality;

·  Leadership;

·  Health Education and Life Skills;

·  Parenting/Childcaring

·  Debating;

·  Sports;

·  Sewing;

    

    

Peer training how to say "hello" with younger girls

Peer training on washing hands with soap

Direct  Beneficiaries:

·  10 female Access students (trained to become peer trainers)

·  250 schoolgirls from twenty five different remote village schools (twenty five girls in each) of Rasht district (increase their knowledge of gender equality, rights in the family, HIV/AIDS, etc.)

·  150 schoolgirls improve debating and critical thinking skills

· 25 schoolgirls from Navdi will be trained as female football players and, potentially. compete with other players of their region
· 20 young girls for sewing courses (poor and vulnerable young girls will improve their sewing skills to help them earn money and make their lives better)

4. Democracy Commission Small Grants 2011, U.S. Embassy, Tajikistan

Home economics and computer literacy for women

The project conducted a number of educational activities to teach basic computer and sewing skills. 

The following activities were conducted under this grant:

1. Computer course for twenty (twenty) young girls and middle-aged women from Navdi Community Center who work as nurses, teachers to find better jobs

2. Sewing courses with the group of twenty young girls who quitted school after 9^th grade and women including middle-aged housewives who desire to learn sewing and increase their sewing skills (ten girls in each group)

5. The English Access Microscholarship Program

In May, 2010, I applied for an English learning grant to the U.S. Embassy, Tajikistan that was designed for pupils from poor and disadvantaged families who have a desire to learn English, and it was approved to receive funding. This was the first group of 12 girls ages 14-16 in my village that I could help launch toward higher education. They have learned English so well that they have become competitive for highly sought-after slots in both national and international exchange programs.

Grants received by my English Access Alumni group from the U.S. Embassy, Tajikistan

1. Alumni Small Grants 2013

I have always emphasized the importance of girls’ rights to education everywhere and the importance of community service, and I was truly the first person to do this in my town. My ideas inspired a group of my former students to apply for alumni grants with my help in 2011 and 2013 to implement community service projects.

The knowledge of rights is a current importance for girls and women of remote communities of Rasht valley. These categories of population are not aware of legal rights and obligations at all. The lack of rudimental legal knowledge creates problems for girls and women in their daily lives, especially when they get married. The most considerable and problematic issue is that women do not have adequate knowledge about family rights and their obligations in their life. Wives, who are not registered for marriage, are vulnerable and often feel powerless, tolerating disrespectful relationships toward them either from their husbands or other relatives.

Lately, the problem has been the serious harassment of divorced women and their relatives. As divorced women suffer due to these problems, they lack support from their parents and relatives. In most cases, women are obliged to earn a living and to provide for their children, finding accommodation and raising young children.

The stated problem contributes to the increasing migration of men in region, being married, going to other foreign countries in search of job and often not returning to Tajikistan at all.  Their wives then will be left without funds and sometimes without accommodation. Women without a marriage registration are prohibited from legal rights to complain to governmental organs and are not able to prove their membership of their husband’s family. Children are left without fathers, and raising children becomes difficult and problematic for mothers. Mothers may go to foreign countries and outside the region in order to earn money, leaving their children for their grandmothers and grandfathers.      

This project directed its activities with the purpose of conducting three trainings on girl’s right to engage and train three groups of 10 girls (30 girls total) from each village of Navdi community center between the ages 15 – 17 from June to August, 2013. 
The seminar will feature explanations about the following:

·    Rights and obligations of girls in education and marriage

·    Property rights during the dissolution of marriage

2. Alumni Small Grants 2011

The aim of the project was to explain on Universal Declaration of Human Rights, movie screening, the right of girls, including having access to education, family, and work, traffic in persons, domestic violence, drugs and HIV/AIDS. The qualified trainers were invited who work at the NGO “Women Resource Center” with the support of OSCE, Gharm Field Office and supports girls of this remote area of Tajikistan.  

Direct Beneficiaries:

30 schoolgirls ages 14-16 from 6 villages

International Day of the Girl Child, 2012 and 2013. 

Navdi village, 2012

The main event was the celebration of the International Day of the Girl Child, with more than 450 schoolgirls from ages 11-17 of three secondary schools (150 per school) in Navdi community center in 2012 and 2013 as well as local school teachers. In the mentioned schools, they didn’t celebrate the holiday and the girls didn’t have information about it. With my help, the Access 2010 and 2011 alumni as well as current Access students organized a meeting with these girls and explained to them the reason for this day why people around the world celebrate it.  “On December 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges that girls face around the world”. 

Kochon Village, 2012

Together we created posters in our native language to put on the walls of the schools’ main entrances to make sure that all schoolchildren know it. So they first congratulated their classmates, and then they distributed handouts to the girls that included information about school dropout, forced marriage, violence, and sexism. More than 350 signatures were collected by male pupils in support. The brochure also included the information on what Islam says about women education. 

Navdi Village, 2013 

Are you for or against girl's education? - Campaign at the school and boys joined, as well. 

                                                          

Kochon Village, 2013

Qalai Sheikh Village, 2013 (new-added village in our list)

Me with my team (6 girls and 4 boys)

Since that time the school principals marked their calendar to celebrate this day every year by themselves.