Pax Populi: Tutoring Students in Afghanistan via Skype

My lovely cousin Lina will be spending this Spring Term at Bentley University tutoring an Afghan student in English via Skype. This student-to-student tutoring programme is spearheaded by a Massachusetts-based NGO known as Pax Populi, whose mission statement declares: "Rather than leaving peacemaking to politicians, we look to ordinary people — educators, businesspeople, people of faith, artists, scientists, and people of goodwill everywhere — to heed the call help advance peace." Launched in November 2008, Pax Populi initiated a "Food for Peace in Afghanistan" project where members of the greater-Boston Afghan community as well as non-Afghans set up a fundraiser on the Bentley University campus forwarding the proceeds to Oxfam America's food assistance programs in Afghanistan. Pax Populi has since developed to connect education institutions in the United States to Afghanistan under the greater umbrella of Applied Ethics, Inc. "established in July 2007 as a nonprofit organization based in Massachusetts, USA, with the mission of seeking ethical solutions to significant social issues through projects, education, counseling, and advocacy."

"Although many people want to support the advancement of peace, they lack the means to enable them to effectively respond," the Pax Populi's mission statement reads,  "The goal of Pax Populi is to put the tools of peacemaking into the hands of ordinary people everywhere through direct people-to-people, institution-to-institution, and community-to-community actions."

Pax Populi has since launched an educational outreach programme in Afghanistan which will bring Afghan students to the United States to advance their education. This is a partnership programme with the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA). One of Pax Populi's first candidates is an exceptional young Afghan woman named Shogofa. Read more about her story on the link.

Pax Populi's English Tutoring programme which has been launched this year will be partnering Bentley University students to students in Afghanistan using Skype to help advance their English skills. I shouldn't be bias, but I do hope Lina gets paired with a girl! Advancing education and literacy in war-torn Afghanistan is a magnificent cause, but girls, in particular, are in need of all the support they can get not only due to the decades of brutal social, cultural, and political oppression (entirely un-Islamic for the record) they faced under the Taliban, but also because in the past few years Afghan girls have risked their lives and the lives of their families by simply stepping into a classroom. The Taliban staged targeted attacks at girls' schools, including intimidating or threatening families that allowed their daughters to go to get an education. In recent developments, negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban has suggested an easing of tensions. As of January 2011, the Taliban claims to end its opposition to the schooling of girls.

The need to bring Afghan students up to speed in education is dire. The Daily Mail cited the Afghan Minister of Education, Farooq Wardak, as providing the following figures:

"The education minister admitted that historically opposition to schooling extended beyond the Taliban to the 'deepest pockets' of Afghan society. "That is the reason that in many provinces of Afghanistan we do not have either male or female teachers," he said. "During the Taliban era the percentage of girls of the one million students that we had was 0%. The percentage of female teachers was 0%. Today 38% of our students and 30% of our teachers are female."

Pax Populi's programme to connect students across the world via the use of social media and free communication technology is a platform that can be replicated by other organisations in the future. The fact that one does not have to travel to Kabul to tutor an Afghan student makes it possible for the ordinary person to get involved in changing major political realities across the world. In this case, globalisation has some very positive outcomes.

Whether she is paired with an Afghan girl or boy, bravo Ms. Lina! You're doing a great deed, lending to positive world change, and you may very well make a new friend you can email and keep for life. No one is more in need of educational and moral support than the young people of Afghanistan.

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To make a tax-deductible donation to the programmes run by Applied Ethics, Inc. please click here.