WADAN’s Quiet Defiance: Building Opportunity for Afghan Women
by Bella Pich Since the Taliban returned to power, reaching Afghan women with education and opportunity has never been harder. CAI’s partnership with WADAN, a local Afghan organization, makes it possible. It is easy to believe that the unimaginable happens somewhere else. For many of us, the idea of losing the right to attend school, […]
Teaching Against the Odds: The Hidden Heroes of Pakistan’s Classrooms
by Emilie Saunders Eleven thousand feet up in the Karakoram Mountain Range of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), there is a village called Dapa. Snow closes it off for months at a time. The families who live there survive on agriculture and livestock. There is one small school available for girls. In another remote village, Malpan Sadpara, also […]
Once You Teach a Child to Read
Why the first years of learning matter most — and how Central Asia Institute’s new Director of International Programs is putting them at the center of everything we do by Alice Thomas In the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, geography has long been destiny. Villages scattered across the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges are cut […]
Is Global Instability Affecting CAI’s Programs? A Letter from Executive Director Alice Thomas
Over the past few months, the Central Asia Institute (CAI) team has received numerous inquiries from donors wondering how global inflation, the conflict in the Middle East, and the political situation inside Afghanistan may be affecting CAI’s programs. First, let me say thank you for your questions. We are always more than happy to share […]
The Happiest Day of My Life: Hadia’s Story
How a classroom in a remote Afghan village gave a young girl a future — and a calling In Dobandi, a remote village in the Baharak District of Afghanistan, school was never something a girl could count on. Distance, poverty and long-standing social barriers kept the classroom out of reach for generations of daughters. Everything […]