SUCCESS STORY OF SAMAR GUL THROUGH ALEF PROJECT
Samar Gul is a girl from rural background familiar with the trials, tribulations, and disappointments of poverty and civil war. Born in Bamyan province of Afghanistan, Ms. Gul has gone through hardships of a poverty-driven life in a civil war situation.
In a situation where the next meal is a matter of faith, Samar Gul, from the time she knew her left and right, had to work on carpet weaving and had to work hard as a child laborer to help feed herself and her family.
Economic hardship, on the one hand, and societal challenges and the warlord’s strict views, on the other hand, were the main factors Ms. Gul could not attend any school and was brought up as an illiterate woman among millions of others in the country.
With the intervention of the international coalition and the forming of a democratic government in Afghanistan, in search of new opportunities, her family migrated from Bamyan to Kabul and settled in a marginalized slum-type community.
In 2010 she was enrolled in the Adult Learning and Education Facilitation project, which currently MCC funds and is designed to teach lifelong learning skills, i.e., literacy, numeracy, peacebuilding, child protection, and birth life-saving skills, to disadvantaged marginalized women in Kabul.
After completing the MCC-funded courses, she started official schooling, and she was also employed by the same MCC-funded project as an instructor.
Amazingly, she could finish high school with satisfactory results and took the university entry exam (Kankor). She got a 211 score and was considered eligible to study in a higher education institution. She is currently studying nursing in one of the private higher education institutions and also works as an intern in one of the well-known hospitals.
Afghan Rayan Educational & Development Organization is paying her higher education fee so that she can support her family while studying.
Amazingly, she could finish high school with satisfactory results and took the university entry exam (Kankor). She got a 211 score and was considered eligible to study in a higher education institution. She is currently studying nursing in one of the private higher education institutions and also works as an intern in one of the well-known hospitals.
Afghan Rayan Educational & Development Organization is paying her higher education fee so that she can support her family while studying.
She is not content with the successes she had in her life. She is a source of inspiration for many women in the ALEF project and in the community.
She says: “If I can become a health practitioner and higher education graduate by starting from scratch, any woman in Afghanistan if provided the opportunity, could become successful and have a dignified carrier.”