Ayni is driven to provide equal education opportunities for girls and woman in Afghanistan.

Since the removal of the Taliban from power at the end of 2001, millions of children have entered the school system – most for the first time. One third of them are girls. Women are again allowed to teach, and some are even principals. Slowly but surely, the educational system is being rebuilt. The reality, however, is that there are large gaps in the system, especially when it comes to girls. Recent data indicates that girls are still substantially under-represented among the students flooding the Afghanistan education system. When school re-started in 2002, most girls began in the 1st grade. It is only recently that we are seeing girls ready for high school. As this demand increases, schools need to be expanded to accommodate the full range of classrooms needed for grades 1-12.

There is also a constant need for literacy classes for those girls left in the “gap” created by the Taliban. In 2002, if a girl was in her teens (or marrying age), many families forbade them from returning to school. This was especially true in more conservative Pashtun communities where Ayni works. In some communities, girls were forbidden to attend regardless of age. Consequently, there are hundreds of thousands of older girls who never had a chance to attend formal schooling, and literacy remains close to where it was years ago – less than 10% for women. Ayni is running programs in these communities that combine both literacy and vocational training.