70 % of Afghan girls do not attend school. A girl may be out of school because the teacher is male, because the school is too far from home, because it is not safe for her to walk to school, or simply because the family does not want to send her to a public school. And practically the whole generation of young women who grew up under the Taliban is unschooled. Now they are too old to enter the first grade--and are doomed to illiteracy.
CBB funds literacy classes, including instruction in health care and the rights of women and children, for 400 young women and girls in Afghanistan. These classes prepare them to take a simple examination to enter the public school system at an advanced grade level, from the third to seventh grade, depending on their age. The literacy classes thus serve as a bridge between illiteracy and a normal education for Afghan girls and young women.
The literacy classes animate a girl to get an education while also helping to break down parental resistance to sending her to a public school. By providing a year or two of literacy training, CBB enables a girl to obtain what we would consider to be a normal education, in fact, a rare gift for her. The literacy classes are thus an efficient and effective means for preparing out-of-school Afghan girls or young women to achieve an education at an annual cost to CBB of only $50.
