One of the most important and long-lasting ways we support women in Afghanistan is by funding their education.
We provide scholarships for women studying to be doctors, midwives and dentists. And we also sponsor young women studying law, economics or business studies.
The women have had to overcome many hardships to get to university and continue to face difficulties while studying.
During the first half of 2021, studies were disrupted many times when the Covid pandemic closed the universities. Courses were run online but not all our sponsored students had or could afford laptops or internet connection.
Since the Taliban took over the country, the private universities and colleges have remained open, with mixed classes running as before, although with a curtain down the middle of the lecture hall to separate the sexes. Government universities have closed and not reopened.
Of the 163 students on LNF scholarships, 140 are continuing their studies, showing great tenacity. Sixteen have fled the country and seven have left their courses for other reasons.
The Taliban have closed women’s dormitories, forcing the women into shared private flats and houses. Many of our students were supporting themselves by teaching and tutoring part-time. That work has now disappeared and, to add to their hardship, food prices have doubled.
We are now providing living allowances to support the students in this rapidly changed situation.
We also intend to fund a new set of scholarships in 2022.
Medical students for Scotland
After the Taliban takeover we received a flood of desperate emails from students begging to be evacuated to the UK.
When the UK government announced that 20,000 Afghans – in addition to those evacuated this year – would be allowed to settle in the UK, we developed a proposal for 20 of the most gifted medical students and five recently qualified doctors to come to the UK.
We contacted the five medical schools in Scotland and received a tremendous response, all agreeing to take some students. The doctors can fit into an existing Scottish refugee doctor training programme in Scotland. We are proud that the Scottish medical establishment has stepped up to the mark.
This isn’t what we set out to do, preferring to support Afghan women to be able to work in Afghanistan. But the situation has changed, and some female doctors have been sent home and told not to return to work.
This would be a tremendous opportunity for these women, many of whom would want to return to their country if the political situation improved. And the skills they develop in Scotland would be in demand, both to practise and to teach others.
We are hopeful that the UK government will have the vision to support our proposal. We are now waiting for the conditions of the resettlement programme to be announced.