Sife logo

SHAMS in Afghanistan

Afghan Government acknowledges that ignorance and illiteracy leads to an unstable country. The need for proper education in Afghanistan is crucial in the journey of rebuilding the country.We will carry out various smaller projects to create economic opportunities for residents of a village in Northern Afghanistan in order to fund the construction of a school building.

Taghai-Khoja is a small village in the province of Sare-pol in the North of Afghanistan. The village has approximately 2000 inhabitants and of mainly farmers. The high rate of illiteracy is a problem in this community since there had been no school in the area for a long time. UNICEF came along and set up a school there in 2001 consisting of 6 tents but it lacks the most primary needs. The education quality is low as well as the level of participation of the children in the village. Sife Tilburg would like to empower and involve the community to contribute to a better primary school.

Students have no school material nor furniture while taking lessons under the tent In the village there is an abundance in cultivation of amongst others sesame seed but there is almost no production of cooking oil out of it even though there is local demand since sesame oil is used in the local cuisine. The residue that is left over after extraction of oil is a very nutritious food for the livestock.

Basically the locals lack the know-how to extract the oil and how to make use of this opportunity in creating a thriving business for the community. SIFE Tilburg sees an opportunity to help these villagers in making this opportunity a realizable and sustainable business. With the profits of this and other business opportunities, the community will be able to have the financial means necessary to improve the quality of education in their village.