Past Programs
Sahar began as Journey with an Afghan School, a group founded to build bridges of understanding between the U.S. and Afghanistan for peace and cooperation in 2001. Since then, Sahar has expanded: building schools, and computer centers, and managing teacher training programs in Northern Afghanistan.
Sahar has worked in this war zone for nearly two decades to increase the status of girls and women in Afghanistan through education, enabling them to participate actively in the social, political, and economic arenas in their communities.
While many NGOs left Afghanistan, Sahar chose to realign our programs to continue serving our purpose within the confines of the new reality. This means many past programs were halted or put on hold until a time when we can take them up again. New programs were built in their place to provide hope where the Taliban has taken it away.
Stealth Sisters
Our Sealth Sisters Program addresses vital skills for Afghan girls; including English, IT, and a focused approach around gender roles, health, and wellness within their communities. These courses are conducted in secret, with local schools, and serve girls who would not be able to attend school due to age restrictions by the Taliban. This program serves 20 girls at a time, preparing the students for future opportunities by addressing many barriers to continued education.
This program educated 60 girls starting in 2022. It was halted due to interference from the Taliban as they began searching for older girls attending public and private schools in 2024.
After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August of 2021, our work on a state-of-the-art building for Sultan Razia Girls Boarding School is paused while we and our partners work through our approach.
Prior to the Taliban takeover, Sahar working closely with the Afghan Ministry of Education, seattle-based architecture firm Miller Hull and the University of Washington School of Built Environment, proposed a solution to help many rural families seeking a safer educational option; adding a boarding school component to an existing school site.
Sultan Razia Girls Boarding School
In 2015, Sahar launched the pilot for the Early Marriage Prevention Program in two Afghanistan schools. Sahar’s strategy integrates conversations about child marriage and education within its two pilot schools and with community leaders, solidifying the long-term importance of educating girls within the cultural framework.
Sahar has graduated 720 girls to date from this program, allowing them to earn more and become independent.
Although this program was halted due to the Taliban takeover in 2021, Sahar is working to establish new roll-outs of this program and bring back this highly successful effort which opens up opportunities for girls and their families.
Early Marriage Prevention Program
Before the fall of the republic, The Afghan teacher training centers funded and managed by Sahar taught several hundred rural teachers the fundamentals of teaching. We focused specifically on training teachers at rural girls’ schools. We funded teachers’ transportation from their villages into urban teacher training centers, allowing the women to receive certification then return to their villages to teach. Others, who may have more difficulty traveling, attended training centers in rural schools. Training these teachers effectively sustained programs for girls’ education in rural areas.
Our more remote Afghan training center was so successful that it was later used as a model by the Afghan Ministry of Education for similar projects. Hundreds of teachers have been trained thanks to Sahar’s training centers, more than 70 percent of which are women.