A girl washes prior to going to tent school in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul. Hundreds of one room schools have opened this year to provide children across Afghanistan access to an education for the first time. (credit:Ned Colt, International Rescue Committee)
(02 of09)
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This girl is on her way to morning classes at a tent school the IRC runs in Kabul. The IRC has opened small schools in 10 of Kabul’s approximately 40 temporary camps for the displaced. (credit:Ned Colt, International Rescue Committee)
(03 of09)
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A boy listens to his teacher at this one room school for refugees in Kabul. Most Afghan children at this school have lived in Pakistan as refugees their entire lives, but recently returned. They live in a temporary camp on private land. School is one of the few constants in their lives. (credit:Ned Colt, International Rescue Committee)
(04 of09)
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This school will close during the three coldest months of winter. It’s not surprising given that there is no insulation, the roof is a piece of tarpaulin, and the only window (made of a broken car windshield) allows both natural light -- and the elements -- into the classroom. (credit:Ned Colt, International Rescue Committe)
(05 of09)
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A first grade student at one of the IRC’s schools in Kabul thumbs through her textbook. UNICEF says only roughly one in ten Afghan women can read or write, though that’s a substantial improvement from a decade ago. Literacy rates for men approach 50 percent, but still remain among the lowest rates in the world. (credit:Ned Colt, International Rescue Committee)
(06 of09)
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Cultural traditions remain strong across most of Afghanistan. This is a burka shop in the western city of Heart. Most women wear enveloping blue burkas for modesty when they go out in public. Another tradition, which is slowly changing, is not sending children to school -- but keeping them home to work in the house or the fields. (credit:Ned Colt, International Rescue Committee)
(07 of09)
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A school-age boy sells sweets in the streets of the western Afghanistan city of Herat. While school attendance has increased eightfold in the past decade, many children still take on jobs to support their families. (credit:Ned Colt, International Rescue Committee)
(08 of09)
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A young refugee returnee outside her family’s mud hut at a temporary camp in Kabul. Increasingly, parents across Afghanistan are sending their girls to school, if there is a school in their community with a local female teacher. More and more one and two room schools are opening across Afghanistan to fill the need. (credit:Ned Colt, International Rescue Committee)
(09 of09)
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This mother of three lived in Iran until four years go. She and her husband fled there during the worst of the fighting in Afghanistan. She’s proud that her seven year old daughter attends a one room school run by the IRC. And she has ambitious hopes for her youngest, whom she cradles in her arms. “He will be a doctor,” she\npromises. “As long as he gets an education.” (credit:Ned Colt, International Rescue Committee)