Literacy Award

On September 8, 2009, UNESCO awarded SERVE Afghanistan’s Pashai Language Development Project the Confucius Prize for Literacy. This award is given in recognition of excellence and innovation in literacy. The theme for this year’s prizes was “Literacy and Empowerment”. The Prize consisted of US$20,000, a medal and a diploma.

We are proud of and thankful for our hard-working staff. Our special thanks to Ju Hong, Sabir, Ahad, Sohrab and the entire team for their amazing work.  

 The Pashai Language Development Project’s History (ERCDP, SERVE Afghanistan)

The project’s literacy program started in 1999 with Pashto (one of Afghanistan’s official languages). The Pashai are a minority people group and Pashai is the name of their language. Since the start of the project, there have been many hindrances and difficulties. Permission was not granted for minority languages and the project’s linguist was ordered to leave the country. But now the program has been encouraged. The community wanted the project to open the Pashai literacy class for their girls as well as boys and adults. Since the time the Pashai language development project started with an orthography seminar (July 2003), the project has published 22 kinds of books and around 1,500 students have graduated from the course or are studying in the course at this moment. The Pashai language development project got its permission in 2006 and 2007 respectively from the local government and the central government. There will be the Pashai pre-primary schools for children between 5~6 years old and we hope that a bilingual education program for children up to the 5^th grade will be set up with the government’s support. The community sees the benefits of the literacy program. It is not just to increase their chance to find employment, but also for keeping their history and culture alive for generations to come. Furthermore, it will enable them to actively participate and contribute to the prosperity of their country, Afghanistan. 

• Since 1999, over 100 Pashto classes have been run (3,500 graduates), and since 2006, 32 Pashai classes have been run by the project. Currently around 1,730 participants are studying in the programs. More than half of the participants are girls and women. 
• Since 2003, 22 kinds of Pashai books (20,000) have been published such as primer, pictorial dictionary, a proverb book, and story books.
• Currently (2009), there are 104 project staff members: 10 full time members, 15 part time and other volunteers, and two expat Technical Advisors.

Ali’s Story:

Ali (pseudo name) lives in K village in Dara-i-Noor district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. His native language is Pashai. When he was 13 years old he was taken out of 7^th grade and put into 4^th grade because, despite being in school for over six years, he was illiterate.  In the 4th grade he still couldn't understand Pashto, the official language. He hated school and felt ashamed to be with younger children in his new class. So he often spent time out of school in the mountains while other students studied; and when other students went home, he came down from the mountain. Ali didn’t want his father, who was a teacher at his school, to be disappointed in him or lose face in such a shame and honor culture.  

His father knew that his son was struggling and was very concerned about him. In early 2006, when the Pashai primer class started in his village, his father sent Ali to the Pashai mother-tongue literacy course with little hope. But amazingly Ali became enthusiastic about learning and became literate within several months in his mother tongue, Pashai. He gained confidence studying Pashai, and he became literate with the official language, Pashto, almost at the same time. Just several months ago he was illiterate but now he can read and write Pashai and Pashto both. His school teacher got advice from many teachers in the school and then put Ali in the 5th grade as encouragement.  Three months later, when the students had their final semester examination, even in the 5^th grade he was the 4^th from the top of his class of 26 students. For several years he hated going to school, but now he goes to school 30 minutes earlier than others. Now attending school is a pleasure for him.

There are many students who have the same experience as Ali. Pashai children's drop-out rate is over 50% in primary schools due to the instructional language of schools being in Pashto which is like a foreign language to them. Because of Ali’s case many parents send their children to the mother-tongue literacy course, and most of the students of the mother-tongue course become literate.