Kabultec Newsletter 2017

Greetings Friends of Kabultec,

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your past support and to share our latest news!

This year in our Couples Literacy Program we graduated one class and inaugurated another. It never fails to amaze us how proud they feel when we take them for the first time the mobile library and they can select reading material for one month! Suddenly their world is so much bigger and opens so many opportunities both with their family and community! They realize that their training offers them capacities that before they could not imagine such as helping their children with homework, knowing the time, dialing telephone numbers, reading a prescription or the bus sign – – or an entire book!

For the second consecutive year, we launched Women and Girls Classes – ages 15 to 65. The demand for all kinds of women’s empowerment is very high and we plan to continue with it also.

Our College for Orphans program started in response to the fact that orphans who cannot go to free public universities and cannot afford private tuitions are often recruited by the extremists. This year, our scholarship students in this program thrived learning their subjects in English for the first time – – their grades have jumped up! We would very much like to continue this program!

Our program to bring Americans to Afghanistan for research and present their Afghan experiences to the American people at home brought us Mike Albin, a peace corps volunteer from 50 years ago. He was our guest speaker at this year’s Benefit Dinner in Annandale and has written his journey in Kabultec website’s blog!

In Communications, our website is a great success, the blog really helps! Our Couples Literacy Program was featured in a BBC radio program. We were interviewed by several magazines as well as TV stations such as Woman’s TV, Tolo, Ariana, Parliament’s TV. The book The World Is Just a Book Away includes Nasrine’s writing. Please look in the back of this letter for some of our activities.

Your support has made this work possible. We thank you for your sponsorship. In this season of thanks and sharing, enjoy your family and community – – but also remember Afghan women and orphans!

Visit our donate page and use PayPal or check to make a donation.. Any amount will serve to enhance a life to enjoy the fruits of education! You are also invited to write about your experience with us for the blog!

Please see some photos from my work in Afghanistan during 2017.

Again, thank you and Happy Holidays.

–Nasrine Gross, President

Girls at a private co-ed school in Kabul. Every year RC donates Children's story books in Farsi/Pashto/English to high schools, since they all lack reading material. In this class, students were excited to the question of "what do you want to be when you grow up?" They all, boys and girls, wanted to become either president of the country or a doctor or a general!

Students in Kabultec's female-only literacy class from 2017.

A student writes on the board in Kabultec's female-only literacy class.

Noor Adel, a young Pashtun man from Paktia province, where female literacy is very low and inappropriate traditions like giving a daughter in return for a crime is rampant, using his own sisters lives and dad's decision as example, in summer of 2016 raised a tent of protest against these habits and mores in Kabul! Nasrine Gross visited the tent to show solidarity to the first man who dared to speak up against such treatment! In the photo, the banner behind them says "our women are not our slaves".

The launch of the creation of a national database of Afghan businesswomen at the Ministry of Commerce--Nasrine Gross was asked to be one of the attendees.

The launch of the creation of a national database of Afghan businesswomen at the Ministry of Commerce--Nasrine Gross was asked to be one of the attendees.

This was the inauguration of the national week of fight against drugs. At the invitation of the Minister of Counter Narcotics, Nasrine Gross was asked to talk about the relationship between literacy and decrease in drug use.