In 2022, the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee designed and implemented a study with the support of Washington University in St. Louis on older adults’ well-being. The study was conducted in 21 schools in Badakhshan province and the Jaighori district of Ghazni province. Currently, in Afghanistan, there are very few services for older adults who experience mental disorders or […]
Author: Mara McKown
Resilience Stories From the Field: Vol. 1
While Afghanistan faces a deep and huge crisis due to regime change and economic collapse we are implementing the Child Resiliency Afghanistan Study in southern Afghanistan, to promote the resiliency skills of children to protect themselves against the crisis. The CRAS project was implemented in 10 intervention and 10 control schools in Jaghori, Malistan, and […]
The Story of Abdul Rashid: Tumors, Farming, and Optimism
Abdul Rashid is fifty-five years old male living in a village in the vicinity of Kakan school. He participated in our Aging and Dementia work lead by the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee with the support of Washington University in St. Louis. The study was conducted with older adults above 50 years old in 22 schools across […]
Published Article: Multidimensional Poverty and Dementia in Afghanistan
We are excited to share our paper that just came out about Poverty and Dementia in rural Afghanistan titled “Multidimensional Poverty is Associated with Dementia Among Adults in Afghanistan”. You can find the open-access version here. Multidimensional poverty in four or five dimensions was strongly associated with dementia among older adults particularly over 70 years […]
GRID at the 2023 SSWR Conference
The GRID lab team recently presented preliminary findings of their 5-year study, Education Equality and Quality in Afghanistan and Pakistan (EEQAP), at the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) 27thAnnual Conference. The three presentations focused respectively on children’s views on inclusive education, teachers’ accountability and the impact of a participatory intervention relying on group model building workshops, […]
Flood Relief and Maternal Health in Pakistan
The summer of 2022 was characterized by record-breaking extreme climatic variations in Pakistan, where heatwaves were immediately followed by monsoon floods that submerged a third of the country, causing the loss of life for 1,500 people. Overall, it impacted the livelihood of over 33 million people, one third of the country’s population according to UNICEF. Among […]
Improving Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Pedagogy is most commonly understood as the approach to teaching the theory and practice of learning and how this process influences and is influenced by the social, political, and psychological development of learners. The teaching strategy was being followed by teachers working under National Rural Support Programmers’ Education Equity and Quality in Afghanistan and Pakistan (EEQAP) […]
What the World Needs to Know
In Afghanistan, more than traditions and culture, what hinders child education is dire poverty and the climate crisis In Afghanistan, one faces unique challenges when conducting a study or implementing an intervention. While in the field in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan, we came to realize the devastating situation families and their children face daily to make […]
Success Story-Building a School Library
During the GMB workshop, an action idea was selected by people of at a school in Qarabagh district to build a room, provide equipment, and prepare books for a library. Based on the mentioned action idea, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) built, equipped, and provided study and learning books for the library at the school […]
Fostering Inclusive Education for Teachers in Pakistan
11/5/20 – 617 million children and adolescents, or six out of 10 globally – are not acquiring minimum levels in literacy and mathematics, with 81% of children and adolescents across central and southern regions of Asia (241 million) in particular not being proficient in reading (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Institute for Statistics, […]
Fighting Lockdown with Free Tutorials
10/19/20 -The historians will mention 2020 as the year of misery, distress, exclusion, damage, and lockdowns due to the outbreak of Covid-19. The education sector took a huge blow as schools from more than 180 countries closed, leaving an estimated 1.5 billion children out of school. Pakistan faces the unprecedented challenge to cope with re-adjusting […]
Examining the impacts of COVID-19 on inclusive education
EEQAPs PI, Dr. Jean-Francois Trani, was recently awarded a R.A.D Grant through the Center for Dissemination and Implementation at Washington University in St. Louis to study the consequences of SARS-Cov-2 on the learning process in primary schools throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan. This large-scale survey will examine current access to distance learning measures and potential changes to the […]
The Everlasting Smile
‘I see hope looking at Asif’, said the head teacher of a school in Rahim Yar Khan District after our two day Inclusive Education Mock Exercise under the EEQAP Project. Asif has a brain and behavior disorder characterized by severe shifts in his mood and energy, making it difficult for him to function like other […]
Let’s Give Every Child Access to Education
Pakistan is facing genuine issues to ensure all children are educated particularly in areas with less educational facilities. It is not easy to give them access to education, ensuring they stay at school and there is inclusion in learning. The enrollment and retention rate in Pakistan is improving but not at the required speed. In […]
Role of Parents and Family Members in Education
Education in Pakistan is the basic responsibility of Ministry of Education and provincial governments. The federal government mostly helps with curriculum development, authorization, and finance. To provide quality education different government organizations and branches, and public schools are working on finding solutions at different levels. Teachers play a key role in learning process by doing […]
Ways to Progress During COVID-19: A Seed into a Tree
The educational system of any country or society is like a seed which sprouts into a tree, but only if taken care of responsibly by someone who also makes sure that its leaves are green and healthy. The EEQAP project is also like a seed anticipated to one day become a tree that provides knowledge […]