Afghan Schoolgirls in open-sided classroom – Jalalabad. May 2006
At the time I took this, the education of girls was banned by the Taliban, however the man that ran the school, a paraplegic ex-Mujahideen fighter who became a wheelchair user when fighting the Russians, managed to persuade the Taliban to keep his school open. The school was well hidden away and out of public view behind the compound wall so that both the teachers and pupils felt safe. There was no formal building classrooms were made up of three sided or two sided shelters. Temperatures at that time of year were already reaching 44° daily and even at 8 a.m. in the morning it was a struggle for these young children to concentrate.
