An Afghan success story: a place where women are free to dream
Esanullah Eshan is a man under siege.
It's not so much the weekly threats of beatings or bombings that dog him from first prayer to last. It's figuring out where to seat the 500 brassy women who stream through the doors of his school, the Afghanistan-Canadian Community Centre, to risk their lives in pursuit of diplomas, jobs and dreams.
Just beyond the school's gates, merely showing their eyes in public could be a punishable offence. Here in Mr. Eshan's office, the sexes are startlingly equal.
"Sir, I have no space to work," said one in perfect English, her eyes trained squarely on her principal.
"Sir, you must sign this form," said another.
"Sir, when will I get my diploma?"
Mr. Eshan, who opened the school in 2007 with funds from individual Canadian donors and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), can barely keep up. Since it opened, the community school's population has exploded from 100 to 700 students - a rate of growth that has stretched both Mr. Eshan and his building. With enrolment growing, he and a group of Canadians are trying to cobble together funds for an expansion. If they can't meet their target, Kandahar's one and only vocational school for women could be forced to start turning away prospective students.
"As you can see, we are at capacity already," he said in one of the school's computer labs recently, where a line of women waited for open computers. "So much time is taken just finding seats for them all. We have been mobbed. We need more computers, more Internet capacity, more space."
Mr. Eshan has cooked up an expansion plan with the help of the Canadian International Learning Foundation, an Ottawa-based charity that funds education in war-torn regions and has launched a website to support Mr. Eshan's work (http://www.theafghanschool.org <http://www.theafghanschool.org/> ). The addition - he calls it the Information Resource Center - would feature an expansive library of English books, television, videoconferencing screens and high-speed Internet. Around $20,000 would do the trick, he said, but there are high barriers to progress in this southern Afghan city where conservative views of a woman's place in society reign.
"Training a thousand women in a conservative town does not make me a popular man," he said. "I have learned to live with the threats. We all die one day."
The school has already undergone one large expansion, moving from a small residential building to its current 15-room facility where women and men take online courses in business management, computer skills, English and health care through a number of Canadian institutions.
So far more than 300 women have found jobs that pay more than $600 a month, well above the national average.
On a recent afternoon, students sat in plastic lawn chairs, two to a computer, while others pestered Mr. Eshan to buy more computers. Beyond the school's gates they conceal their faces behind a burqa, but here they expose their smirks and smiles to the world.
"My dad wants me to be a doctor," said 20-year-old Yelda Mahmoud as she completed an online assignment through the World Bank Institute. "I may go into business instead."
The baby blue walls surrounding the women display posters from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, the Calgary-based school that has been instrumental in establishing ACCC, supplying it with web-based diploma courses and faculty.
Several afternoons a week, Ms. Mahmoud logs onto Skype for one-on-one lessons with her SAIT teacher, Tom Kozma.
"It is usually very early where he is, around 3:30 a.m.," she said. "Sometimes he is very cute and brings his baby daughter to sit on his lap while he teaches."
In a few months, she hopes to pass her report-writing course and move closer to a business communications diploma.
Sitting next to her, 17-year-old Anita Barakzai dreams of starting a business that promotes hiring female employees.
"There are more jobs for women than ever before right now," she said, letting her headscarf slip from her hair. "We need more. A bright future for our country means we have to make a bright future for our women."
The women, who range in age from 16 up to 40, forfeit nothing but peace of mind for the classes.
"Yes, the classes are free," said Ms. Barakzai. "But many more students would come if it were safe. Everyday I feel insecure. I live only two blocks away, but my parents drive me every day because the Taliban said they will throw acid in our faces."
Last year, a male from the school (one-third of the students are male) was killed and a female was abducted for wearing Western pants and shirts, according to current students.
Mr. Eshan spends much of his time visiting concerned parents to convince them the classes are worth the risk.
"I tell them I will get their daughter a job," he said. "I tell them their daughter will earn money, an honourable thing. I tell them their country needs them. These talks help. Yesterday three girls withdrew after their parents heard a girl was killed for going to school; today the three girls were back in class."
Mr. Eshan is experienced with these tense chats. He's opened several schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, all in religiously conservative towns where women's education is generally rejected. "People have held marches against my schools. They have called me crazy, said that I have a problem."
Last June, SAIT invited 12 women to Calgary for their official graduation ceremony. They were all set to travel, but security concerns held them back. "Unfortunately there were too many threats that morning," said Mr. Eshan. "Only I could travel."
He intends to try again. Next year, he wants to choose a small group for the trip to Alberta.
Ms. Mahmoud's eyes light up when she overhears this. "I want to see Calgary," she said. "I want to go there very much."
Mr. Eshan recognized his leverage instantly.
"We will see when your marks come back," he said. "We will see."
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Ryan Aldred
President
The Canadian International Learning Foundation
Mail. PO Box 4791, Stn E, Ottawa, ON. K1S 5B1
Web. www.canilf.org <http://www.canilf.org/> <http://www.canilf.org <http://www.canilf.org/> >
Email. staff@canilf.org <x-msg://1077/staff@canilf.org>
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Phone. (613) 614-5349 / (202) 239-6202
