It’s called Today Child and it was founded by 23-year-old activist Wazir Khan. In the Bagrami district, 17 km from the center of the capital, he teaches about 1,000 boys and girls. With a group of volunteers, he carries out door-to-door campaigns to inform families about the importance of education, even in the desperate situation in Afghanistan today.
Kabul () – The Afghan population was deprived of its future after the Taliban reconquered the country almost two years ago. Since then, 90% of the population has fallen into poverty, the vast majority suffer from food insecurity and girls are denied their rights. The UN estimates that at least 6 million children were left without the right to education in the new school year. While the international community remains stuck between the need to send humanitarian aid and the refusal to recognize the Taliban government as legitimate, there is someone who dreams of giving the little ones a different future.
His name is Wazir Khan and he is 23 years old. About a year ago he founded Today Child, “a school that offers free education in rural areas,” he told . Actually, it is not a proper school, with a roof, classrooms, desks and school supplies. Wazir teaches in the open air with a portable blackboard, while the children, who can follow the teachings for a maximum of two years, listen to him sitting on the ground. And they come regardless of the weather, even when temperatures drop below zero: “They are eager to learn and glad to have this opportunity. So are their parents.” Girls occupy the first places.
He started with a handful of students and now has “1,000 students,” the young professor continued. “I am originally from Baghlan province, but I live in Kabul,” he explained, as the school operates in Batkhak, in the capital’s Bagrami district, where there are no public schools. “I started being an activist a year ago because there were no schools for girls,” he explained. “I saw children from rural areas who had no opportunity to learn, so I decided to dedicate myself to education.”
With a group of volunteers, Wazir works in two directions: on the one hand, he tries to build a school building for the children of the district; on the other, he conducts “door-to-door campaigns to find the children,” provides information to families about Today Child, and “sensitizes parents about drug use and children’s rights.” Batkhak is about 17 kilometers from the center of Kabul and most of its inhabitants are engaged in agriculture and livestock.
“The volunteers,” Wazir stressed, “work completely free of charge, they do not receive financial support from any person or organization.”
The Afghan population continues to experience the Taliban reconquest as a shock, according to Wazir. Despite 20 years of war, young people had been able to experience the possibility of going to school freely. In an instant everything was devastated, but Wazir decided not to give up, and neither did his students. In his school there is also a place for children with disabilities, as is the case of 10-year-old Hamid, who gets around thanks to a wheelchair. When he goes to class he sits in the front row, next to the girls, and to write on the blackboard he is free to approach. Perhaps if his school had desks, walls, and flights of stairs, all of this would not have been possible.
