“We want to change our university,” was the comment of one of the professors from a partnering university in Afghanistan, who came to Portland, Oregon along with four colleagues for a three-week educational internship hosted by Co-Serve International.

This team of professors came to Portland to learn from professors and students in a variety of colleges in the Northwest. Initially twelve professors planned to come to the US for this internship, however only five were able to secure visas to the USA. These twelve professors plan to implement a new Servant Leadership Center in the heart of their Afghan university, impacting 16,000 students annually. This university was the university that helped to launch Morning Star’s first Institute for Leadership Development in 2004.

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Transforming The Lives of Afghan Women One Individual At A Time

With each new problem she faced, she cried, “I can’t do it! I’m illiterate!” Shirin, a 35-year old Afghan woman, was desperate to move out of poverty. Like most Afghan women, she was never allowed to go to school as a girl. Her father would say, “Why waste your time in school when you will soon be a wife and mother?” Yet she was determined to break the cycle of illiteracy, poverty, dependency and helplessness which was already being passed on to her 6 children.

During Shirin’s time as a child, literacy rates were below 20% nationally (almost zero for women). Today, literacy for Afghanistan is 43% of the total population. Although there has been great improvement, there are still five boy’s schools for every one girl’s school.

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