Snow has already begun to fall in the rugged mountains surrounding Bamyan, in Afghanistan's central Hazarajat. To insulate baked brick homes against the severe winter weather ahead, villagers are plastering additional layers of mud to the outer walls. It's important work, but each day, Gul Makai puts down her trowel to tend to something she believes equally important to survival: the Learning for Life (LfL) class she facilitates for 29 women in her village.

Launched by the USAID-funded REACH Program in 2004, LfL is an accelerated adult literacy and learning initiative designed to create a larger pool of Afghan women who can be trained to meet the country's urgent need for female health providers. Afghan women desperately need health care, but in a traditional, Islamic society, many families demand that the care come only from female health providers, who are in short supply. In far too many cases, especially in rural areas, where the bulk of the population live, the absence of a female provider results in another woman's death.

Although aid organizations in Afghanistan, including NGOs funded by USAID through REACH, are training women as community health workers and community midwives, finding and recruiting women with even a minimal level of reading and writing skills is difficult. War, insurrection, and the influence of the Taliban long denied Afghan women and girls the most rudimentary education. Currently, only one woman in five is literate nationwide, and in some areas, as few as 4% of the women can read and write.

Over 8000 women are enrolled in LfL classes in 10 Afghan provinces, and their response to the program has been enthusiastic. In Jowzjan province, women say that until LfL began, they had been “shistegi dar khane” –just sitting in the house. “Under the Taliban,” said one, “I grew up in my yard. Now I can finally go out, and I am so excited to learn!” In Paktia, groups of women from nomadic Kuchi tribes are studying for the first time in their lives. Many choose to sit on the fringes of the clean mat spread down the middle of the floor, carefully reserving it for their precious books, tablets and other learning materials.

In acquiring basic math skills and learning to read and write, the women use a variety of health-based materials. Achieving the required level of literacy will qualify the learners for further training as health providers, but meanwhile, every woman is learning how to better protect and improve her own health and that of her family. The women also say they share what they learn with their neighbors.

Learning for Life has not only generated the women’s enthusiasm, it has also earned the approval and support of their families, neighbors and village leaders. A visitor to classes in Jowzjan province writes, “In every class we went to, the learners talked about the impact the health materials have had on the way they cook, wash and use the toilet and said that their husbands, and children--and even the mullahs--are noting the positive impact LfL is having on their community.”

Asked to name something learned in class that had made a significant difference in their lives, a young woman in Jowzjan said she had learned about oral rehydration salts (ORS) just a few weeks before her two-year-old son fell ill with diarrhea, a disease that kills thousands of infants and children in Afghanistan each year. Because she had learned how to make and use ORS solution, the young mother had been able to prevent her child's illness from becoming too severe.

Unaware of the fatal consequences of dehydration, many Afghan mothers withhold food and drink from a child with diarrhea. In Qizil Qul village, Faryab province, a woman recalled the tragedy of not knowing what to do: “Two of my children died of diarrhea, and I could not do anything to help them. I felt so helpless when they were dying. Everybody told me not to give them any liquids. Now I understand that I killed them myself because of my ignorance.” Other women said they had used ORS, which is marketed at low cost throughout Afghanistan, but had been mixing it improperly.

In Herat, a woman volunteered that her husband was being treated for TB, a disease that had already killed her sister-in-law. “I’ve learned,” she said, “that we should eat from separate dishes. We all need to cover our mouths when we cough, and no one should sleep in the same room with someone who has TB. My family is large and the house is crowded, so to reduce our chance of getting TB, we must be extra careful.” The same woman had also learned that anyone with a long-lasting cough should see a doctor, valuable information for the control of TB in Afghanistan, one of the 22 highest TB-burdened countries in the world.

In Faryab, a woman said class discussion on the importance of sanitation had convinced her that her family should dig a pit for garbage disposal and make changes in the way they stored food and water. “When I told my husband that I’d learned about tiny organisms called microbes that can kill someone once inside the body,” she related, “he refused to believe that anything so small could cause harm. I was able to explain that microbes grow and reproduce, causing disease, and then I took him and showed him all the places inside and outside our home where microbes could breed.”

Learning for Life is empowering women in ways large and small, overt and subtle. In Badakhshan, a girl of fifteen had felt helpless. Her mother was frequently ill and often needed medicine, but the girl was afraid to go into town to obtain it. “When I realized that now I could read the signs for the pharmacy by myself,” she said with a shy smile, “I decided to try to get the medicine on my own. And I succeeded!”

Although Afghan males don’t always embrace programs that require women to leave their homes, in some provinces, men have come forward to ask visiting LfL staff to initiate additional classes in their communities, and many women participating in LfL classes were urged to do so by their husbands, the local shura, and their families.

In Ghazni province, the chief of a village shura, or council, initially opposed LfL classes, saying women would simply use them to escape household duties. After a time, however, he publicly admitted that he had changed his mind: “Before these classes,” he said, “the women here did not pay attention to cleanliness and hygiene. Now they are washing the udders of the sheep and goats before milking them!”

LfL classes also provide women the opportunity to learn more about Islam, a component that has helped win acceptance of the program by men who may have otherwise refused participation by their female family members. In addition to health materials, stories from the Quran, prayers and descriptions of Islamic holidays are used to practice reading and writing. In Khwaja Do Koh district, Jawzjan province, some first thought LfL was a program to convert women to another religion. LfL community mobilizers showed community leaders the religion books, and after much discussion, the mullah announced in the mosque that the program was good and that families should send their women to the courses.

Although it’s not always easy for Afghan women to participate in LfL classes, organizers and facilitators report faithful attendance despite the difficulties involved. Many in Jowzjan walk 30 minutes to reach their classroom, often through open fields, muddy and hard to negotiate during rain. While women are attending class, female relatives often help with their household chores and take care of the older children, but it’s not uncommon to see a woman in class writing with her right hand while her left arm holds an infant to her breast.

In one Uzbek village, virtually destroyed during more than two decades of war, many in the LfL class are widows supporting large families by weaving rugs. Leaving their looms several hours each day to come to class obliges them to work into the night, when there is no electricity and they can barely see the threads. Nevertheless, with the skin of their hands cracked and their eyes weak from continual weaving, they come regularly to class. None of these women had ever before picked up a pen.

In Faryab province, where security has sometimes been poor, women keep coming to class no matter what is occurring in the area. When five people in a nearby village were killed by insurgents, learners insisted, “Ech gappe naste”—“It makes no difference”—and their attendance never faltered. The husbands of the facilitators in Faryab have been especially supportive, making sure the classes are strongholds. Should a problem or incident occur, one of them rides a motorcycle to the LfL office in the city of Maimana to tell staff what has happened.

LfL facilitators are generally in their mid-20s or early 30s; most have from a 7th to 12th grade education. Many facilitators for the 604 women enrolled in Herat were educated in Iran, where they were among the estimated 2 million Afghan refugees who fled there during the war years. Trained and provided materials to use in the classes, many facilitators have also found ingenious ways to use local materials to teach math skills, such as number counters made of beans, an abacus made of cardboard, and blocks of wood painted different colors. One teacher engaged the students in a demonstration of sanitary food preparation using a whole set of items: two pots, a bottle of chlorine, grapes, clean water and dirty water, leeks, salt for soaking the leeks, and a plate of food she had allowed to mold beneath a towel to illustrate the do’s and don’ts of food storage.

One of LfL’s most notable achievements has been the effect it has had on the learners’ self-esteem and confidence. LfL has given them a new-found pride in the ability of women to learn; many hope to set an example for the young girls in their families and communities. In Kabul province, where 610 women are completing the nine-month course, several mothers and daughters in the village of BegToot have been attending class together. The women smile as they tell of primary school children volunteering to help them with their studies. Many speak of the thrill of writing their own names for the first time. With a grin, one said her husband had asked her to help him learn to write too.

The extent of Learning for Life’s personal impact on the women in the classes is impossible to measure, but perhaps the story told by one learner in Badakhshan province illustrates how profound it can be. Years ago, on leaving home to join the fight against the Soviet occupation, the woman’s only brother had written a note and given it to her, telling her to open it should anything happen to him. Within a year, he had been killed. Though never able to understand what he had written, his sister had treasured the note as a precious memento. Now, having learned how to read, she had taken the note out of the special bag where she kept it, unfolded the creased, yellowed paper, and had at long last read her brother’s final words.

Listening to her story, her fellow learners, each an Afghan woman who has endured many heartaches of her own—had tears in their eyes.

In September and October, women in 69 Learning for Life classes in Kabul and Herat provinces, which piloted the Initiative, became the first to complete the program. Courses in 10 other provinces will be completed in March 2006.

Learning for Life, developed and managed by the Center for International Education at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, is implemented by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) as part of the USAID-funded REACH Program.

REACH is a USAID-funded program implemented by Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and the Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MOPH). Partners include the Academy for Educational Development (AED); JHPIEGO; Technical Assistance, Inc. (TAI); and the University of Massachusetts/Amherst.

» Story: Learning for Life—Door to a Brighter Future for Afghan Women

» Story: Learning for Life at Work in the Classroom

» Read more about the REACH Learning for Life Program

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