KANDAHAR: The PenPath Mobile School was founded by Matiullah Weesa and Ataullah Weesa in Kandahar in 2009. During 2004, there were a range of problems facing students in Kandahar’s Maroof district. Therefore, both Matiullah Weesa and Ataullah Weesa decided to raise their voice for those children who were deprived from going to school. In 2009, they created the PenPath Voluntarily Society, which is still active with volunteering support of more than 2,400 volunteers including 400 women and 2,000 men who are religious ulamas, community and tribal elders and knowledgeable youth.
According to the PenPath founder, the main aim of the PenPath Mobile School in Kandahar is to reopen all those schools that have been closed since 2001 due to security problems.
“Another aim of the school is to provide pens and books to each Afghan child deprived from of going to school, convince parents to send their children to school, hold literacy classes for uneducated youth, enliven the culture of seeking knowledge and education and help miserable children and orphans enroll at schools,” Weesa said.
Pointing to setting up a mobile library, Weesa said that the PenPath mobile library was created on 16 May 2022, adding that students from 1st – 9th classes were taught. He further said that they would provide facility for 12th-grade student’s tool.
“There are different books at the library as textbooks, short-story and novel books both in soft and hard for children to read and stationeries as pens and notebooks,” Weesa said, adding that there are also volunteer professional teachers who voluntarily teach the children different subjects.
Besides, that children have access to books and volunteer teachers, those youth and aged people who did not have access to education in the past are provided with books and teachers to receive education. Meanwhile, female teachers are sent to teach those girls who did not have access to education in the past. The PenPath network is working to provide facilities of English and computer courses for Afghan students at the library. The PenPath mobile school is providing the children with pens, textbooks, building and professional teachers through both online and offline. There’s only one mobile school that has been created with the financial support of Afghans and does depend to any non-government organizations. The PenPath network is making effort to launch and extend such mobile schools to remote areas of the country’s 24 provinces so that Afghan children can have access to education.
The PenPath founder Matiullah Weesa has asked the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to build schools in all those areas where Afghan children do not have access to education, hoping that all children both boys and girls are not deprived from going to school in the country.
He’s asking the international community to cooperate with the IEA to build more schools and universities as Afghanistan now needs educated people and cadres to build the country. Besides, the international community should grant higher education scholarships to Afghan youth to study abroad and start to serve the country soon after they graduate from foreign universities.
It is worth mentioning that the PenPath network now has more than 2,400 volunteers across the country who help set up local classrooms, find teachers, distribute books and stationery, and organize community gatherings in support of education for both boys and girls.
Nik Mohammad Nikmal
Pen Path setting up schools, libraries to support education in Afghanistan
