Resalat Primary School completed

The construction of Resalat Primary School has been completed. It is the 6th school funded by Comitato Arghosha Faraway Schools. We are now sending well over 2,000 Afghan children to school.

Dear Friends and Donors,

We are proud to announce that the Resalat primary school has been completed. There are still some minor works pending, such as the water well, but the main school building has been finished and is ready to welcome 300 pupils (213 boys and 87 girls) in April 2011, when the new school year will start.
Resalat is in Shahidan valley, near Shahidan village, the biggest centre that lies on the main road between Bamyan village and the Band e Amir lakes. Shahidan was an area that suffered particularly under the Talibans who committed mass murders when they got control of the valley at the end of their regime in 2001. As the valley is situated at about 3,000 m height, the climate is particularly cold and the school year lasts 8 months, one month less than usual. For this reason we are particularly happy to announce that Shuhada, the Ngo that we fund and that was in charge of the works, was able to deliver the building on time before the snowfalls. We are happy to work with Shuhada: in the 6 years we have operated together it proved to be an honest and reliable partner.

Resalat is the sixth school that the Arghosha Committee has funded in the Bamyan province, in central Afghanistan. The school has 6 classrooms plus a teachers’ room. It has one headmaster and 10 teachers, plus one guardian. All these people will be paid by the Afghan State, therefore we are adding 12 new jobs to the area. The school serves a community of about 700 families (almost 5,000 people) living in the surrounding 72 villages of the Shahidan Valley. The cost of building Resalat was Us $ 84,000.

Resalat school brings to 2.150 the number of pupils that study in the 6 schools funded by Arghosha Committee. All the schools have been identified by Shuhada as fit for purpose and approved by the Afghan ministry of Education. They are all State schools, following the national curriculum.
Besides the school, this year we were also able to complete, thanks to a generous donor, another computer and English course for girls leaving high school. These courses are particularly sought after as Bamyan has a natural vocation for tourism, given the legendary beauty of its surroundings. They are taking place in a crucial moment of the valley’s development: Bamyan town is rapidly growing and now has two banks and three hotels. Besides the historical Bamyan Hotel and the recently built Silk Road Hotel, it now has a brand new guest house built by Shuhada. As Shuhada is a non profit organisation, all income earned will go to support the costs of running two orphanages that the organisation has built in Bamyan town.