By Kayla O'Neill | Senior Business Partnerships Associate
Last year’s Safer World Fund campaign has concluded, with donors like you contributing a total of $70,520. Together, you supported 10 organizations working to improve education, health, and livelihoods in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with a focus on women and girls. Your impact went even further thanks to $40,000 in matching funds.
Here are some of the amazing ways your donations were put to work:
You’ve helped women like Satayesh, age 23, learn basic literacy skills.
One of Afghan Institute of Learning’s most effective classes is a four-month Mobile Literacy program where students are given mobile phones and taught how to use them. Students answer questions from the teacher by text message. In last year’s program, 350 women began with very basic literacy, with some not knowing the alphabet. By the end of the program, 86% were reading at a fourth grade level! Texting is used to accelerate literacy acquisition and to create social bonds between classmates and friends reducing isolation. Students love this format, and, unsurprisingly, text much more than required by the syllabus.
You’ve helped women like Razia, an Afghan returnee from Iran, achieve her dream of education.
Upon her return to Afghanistan, Razia was required to present sufficient documents and be of a specific age to be admitted to traditional public school. Otherwise, they could attend only literacy classes or night school. While searching to find a school to fulfill her dream, she almost lost hope. Finally, Razia learned about a school run by Aid Afghanistan for Education in Kabul. She said, “When I saw students of my age, I was always motivated and realized that there is no age restriction to get an education.” Razia has since turned 28 years old and earned her high school diploma. She wants to be an active voice for Afghan women and girls by becoming a journalist. She will begin studying journalism this summer at one of the prestigious universities in Kabul.
You’ve helped 65 girls learn how to build an e-commerce website.
The flexible funding you give to organizations like Dawood Global Foundation - Educate a Girl allows them to pivot and offer extended e-commerce training to their students. They were able to expand their 16-hour course into six weeks, so that the girls participating could better learn both how to build a website and how to tweak it to optimize for search engines.
Donations to the Safer World Fund will support the three organizations mentioned above along with seven other causes. There is still much work to be done to support communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, so thank you for being part of the Safer World Fund!
By Joyce Manchester | Project Leader, The Safer World Fund
By Joyce Manchester | Project Leader
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