Japanese Students Help Afghan Women Access Education
The United Nations says everyone should have the right to learn. But that's not the case in Afghanistan, the only country in the world with restrictions on women's education.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, girls are not allowed to go to school after sixth grade.
But that hasn't stopped some Afghan women from trying, and there are underground schools where girls and women can learn without the Taliban knowing.
And some are even being helped by a group of high school students from Japan.
Education for Afghan Women, or EFAW, is a volunteer group that organizes online exchange meetings between Japanese high school students and Afghan women.
These meetings are currently attended by Afghan girls and women between 6 and 45 years old.
They allow the girls and women to talk about their future dreams and to ask for support from the international community.
Shizuka Endo, a third-year student at Tokyo Metropolitan Kokusai High School and founder of EFAW, said that Japanese people take their education for granted.
"It was unimaginable that people would be deprived of that opportunity," she said to the Mainichi Shimbun, adding that she wanted to help Afghan women after being inspired by her father, an international journalist.
After his trip to Afghanistan in 2022 and seeing the struggles women were facing there, Shizuka's father told her that there should be "no limit to humanitarian assistance."
After hearing this, Shizuka decided to start a group to help Afghan women. She asked 10 of her friends to help, and together they formed EFAW.
With her father's help, Shizuka contacted a representative of an underground school in Afghanistan and invited them to start an exchange session.
So far, EFAW has sent 80,000 yen — about $540 — to the school so they can buy teaching materials. Shizuka says EFAW will continue to help Afghan women, and hopes more young people will join her.
