Abdul Hameed Alizai Youth Activist/Contract/HRD Manager Afghanistan Enhancing Rural Education and Leadership Development Afghanistan Self. My name is Abdul Hameed Alizai. I am employed by Global Partnership for Afghanistan an American nongovernment agency which has been working in Afghanistan for some years. GPFA’s programs are a model for successful development of Afghanistan’s Agriculture sector. If applied more broadly, our model can help the country achieve sustainable income, food security, enduring peace, economic self-sufficiency and stability and improved lives and livelihoods for ordinary people throughout the country. Introduction to ERELD: Afghanistan has the highest proportion of young people in the world, with 60% of the country’s population below the age of 21. This means that enhancing rural education and leadership development is a major need in our country.
During the last 30 years, Afghanistan has been devastated by a sequence of conflicts and civil wars involving both internal and external protagonists. This has left our education system very badly damaged and in need of major development efforts.
Much has been done toward the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals and the international community is helping Afghanistan to move toward peace – despite the continuing
insurgency in the country. There are still, however, many challenges and lack of facilities that our Afghans face every day.
It is very difficult to express the situation in my country and say how serious it is. Poverty
actually kills more Afghans than those who die as a direct result of the armed conflict.
According to a report published by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), some 9 million Afghans – 36 per cent of the population – are believed to live in absolute poverty and a further 37 per cent live only slightly above the poverty line, despite an estimated injection of some $35 billion during the period 2002-2009.
Afghanistan has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world and the third highest rate of child mortality. Only 23 per cent of the population have access to safe drinking water, and only
24 per cent of Afghans above the age of 15 can read and write, with much lower literacy rates among women.
One of the most persistent complaints across Afghanistan, apart from the lack of security, is the lack of proper education and awareness of even the most basic concepts of environmental stewardship, individual and community responsibility. The depth of financial and social problems, poor GDP, poor or non-existent health services, unemployment, environment and climate problems over all Afghanistan is hard to visualize. Child labour, as a consequence of this situation deprives many children of adequate education.
I believe that Education in the third millennium must change its direction.
Education is the bridge to understanding. It allows for the possibility of peace and stability. Education promotes the development of shared beliefs and the evolution of shared values that result in cooperation rather than conflict. Education is the ideal that will “improve the lot of others.”
Enhancing Rural Education for Sustainable Development can promote youth entrepreneurships and leadership skills for young people to become socially responsible in their communities and in the country.
• It will show and promote the important role of tertiary education in creating jobs.
• It will empower youth through proper education and try to develop a stable system for this generation of the 21st Century and the upcoming generations.
• It will give young people a more global vision of making a contribution to systemic, massive change relating to the concepts of human reconnection to the earth for
sustainable development. Young people can be helped to see that they can make a difference to the future.
• Young people should be helped to develop a mutual understanding for taking action for their community and its resources.
• Enhanced rural education and leadership development will ensure that students have practical and saleable skills and so that graduates can find employment in the job market.
Enhancing Rural Education for Sustainable Development needs to develop leadership skills and allow young people to assume a position of civic responsibility with the goal of achieving the Millennium Development Goals for the community. It will help young people:
• to be able to strive for rural education & leadership development.
• to be treated with civility and rural values learning.
• to contribute to the development of new knowledge through solidarity activities.
• and to participate in community and public service, responsive to the needs of society for improving and expanding successful initiatives and improve the capacity of people and engage them for the community development responsibilities.
The Objectives of Enhancing Rural Education for Sustainable Development will have to help
1. Young people to have real social inclusion in their communities.
2. Promote leadership and entrepreneurship as core activities for development and peace.
3. Promote a network of support that allows young people to move forward even in the midst of difficult circumstances.
4. Promote sustainable development by equipping young people with the resources they need to take action.
These same objectives can help Afghanistan to achieve better lives and livelihoods for our people and to throw off the chains of poverty and poor education. They can inspire hope for the future in our country especially amongst young people whose hopes are often crushed.
They help can draw my country into the modern world.