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Mentor Interview: Victory Afghanistan
08/11/2024
Michelle Skowbo
In this mentor interview, learn about Victory Afghanistan, a program that is helping teen girls and women to continue their schooling and pursue their goals.
Question: What are the goals of the students in your program?
Answer: Students join the Victory Afghanistan organization to, of course, improve their English skills and be able to have access to schooling and knowledge.
The Victory Afghanistan team aims to prepare these girls and women for online schooling: be that online high school, be that certificate programs if they have their degrees or building a platform for them to get ready for university programs. That is the goal mostly of students doing the program.
Question: What will students learn in your program?
Answer: At the moment, Victory Afghanistan offers two programs. One is mentorship, where our mentors - who are experienced and have degrees - support their mentees with soft skills like building their resume, their LinkedIn profiles, applying for certificate programs, the first three months in a new job, and how to look for jobs or explore different career options. Their mentor guides them in weekly check ins. That’s one program that we offer.
The second one is the English language program, where we’re teaching English at five different levels, all taught by volunteer teachers from more than twelve countries around the world.
So in the mentorship program, it’s mostly the soft skills: higher education or online schooling, but on the English language side, it’s improving their English literacy skills.
Question: Is there a curriculum that students get in advance and check in, or does the teacher or tutor show up and do a screenshare?
Answer: Our Victory Afghanistan curriculum team have built our own curriculum. We do give all the materials to the teachers; however, they also have the freedom to provide their own materials. So if the teacher is someone who has learned English as a second language, then whatever helped them in their English language journey, they’re more than welcome to provide it to their students. And if they are people who speak English as their first language, they can use whatever materials helped them in their high school or junior high classes.
So to give you a short answer, we have the curriculum built, but the teachers can provide their own materials in addition to the materials that we have built for them.
Question: And are students getting that live or in advance?
Answer: So in the classrooms, we publish weekly lectures. So for example, the Friday before, we will be publishing the lectures for the upcoming week, and any assignments. So students get access to that just the week before.
The intermediate and advanced level students take four classes with us per week. Two are with the core teacher - that’s where they learn grammar, reading, writing - and two hours with the speaking instructor. So the speaking instructor practices the same materials that the core teacher has covered, and provides opportunities to practice in conversation with the students.
The lower level classes initially just have two hours with the core teacher, and then once they are able to hold a conversation, they have an extra hour with the speaking instructor.
Question: Does your program work with Afghans living outside of Afghanistan?
Answer: More than 90 percent of our students are based in Afghanistan and come from more than 21 provinces. We’ve also made an exception for some Afghan students to join from Iran and Pakistan, where they have migrated. The reason is that these countries don’t allow schooling for these new immigrants. But other than that, more than 90 percent come from Afghanistan.
About the volunteers, they come from more than twelve countries around the world. They have different backgrounds: educational or career backgrounds.
Question: There’s been discussion in the media about the risks female students take to attend secondary school. Can you speak to the safety and legal concerns around these students, their families, and/or instructors?
Answer: All girls and women have been banned above sixth grade from going to school, university, or work. Now, the reason we started Victory Afghanistan was to make online education accessible to them, to youth in Afghanistan, focusing on girls and women. However, the political system in Afghanistan has not made any public announcements on online education yet.
One of the reasons they have limited women from going to school is because they believe women should not be leaving their homes and that they belong in the house: That’s their ideology. And based on that, they have limited these women. However, because there have been no public announcements that you cannot take online classes, there hasn’t been a risk of, let’s say, the Internet being cut. On the family side, most of these students have great support from their parents and their siblings if they’re attending classes, and they’re very supportive of them.
Again, because the students have no jobs, they cannot buy a smartphone or pay for the Internet every month. It might not be the case for 100% of all the students, but for most of them, their family is supporting them.
So legally, there haven't been any challenges with these online classes. The Victory Afghanistan team has not received any threats for offering these classes to women in Afghanistan, but we never know if or when they’re going to announce that women are also banned from learning remotely from their homes.
Question: Is there anything else that you would like to share about the program?
Answer: The commitment to be a volunteer with the program is four hours per week, so two hours is teaching and another two other hours is preparing and grading student assignments, all of the good stuff. We’re always open to accepting new volunteers and accepting new students. We don’t have a requirement for our students to limit them from applying to the program. The only thing they have to do is click on the form and then submit it. When we receive it, they’re going to go on the waitlist. When we get new teachers on board, they’re going to be added to the class. So the only requirement for them is to either be in Afghanistan or an immigrant in Iran or Pakistan and to be above grade six where there are no options for school or work. That is our only requirement. 50% of our students are between the ages of 21 and 26, so they have graduated high school and often have some university experience and perhaps a bachelor degree. And then 30% of the students are between the ages of 16 to 21, so those are fresh high school graduates or high school students, or just entered university. 20% of students are 26 and above. We also have students who are more than 38 years old and they’re still doing the program: A mom is in the program alongside her daughter.
Question: Are there particular subjects that students are interested in? Longterm, [they want to] learn English to then [do what]?
Answer: Yes, there are. So, one of the immediate requests we have received from our students is: Can you also offer computer programs to us in addition to English? We haven’t started working on that yet, on the skills to be able to do that.
And the reason they learn English is because they want to be able to apply for scholarships, universities abroad, schools abroad: the option to either travel to get their education or be able to continue their education through universities and schools abroad [through] online learning. That has been the goal for most of them.
Michelle Skowbo
A Mentor Interview with Victory Afghanistan
In this mentor interview, learn about Victory Afghanistan, a program that is helping teen girls and women to continue their schooling and pursue their goals.
Question: What are the goals of the students in your program?
Answer: Students join the Victory Afghanistan organization to, of course, improve their English skills and be able to have access to schooling and knowledge.
The Victory Afghanistan team aims to prepare these girls and women for online schooling: be that online high school, be that certificate programs if they have their degrees or building a platform for them to get ready for university programs. That is the goal mostly of students doing the program.
Question: What will students learn in your program?
Answer: At the moment, Victory Afghanistan offers two programs. One is mentorship, where our mentors - who are experienced and have degrees - support their mentees with soft skills like building their resume, their LinkedIn profiles, applying for certificate programs, the first three months in a new job, and how to look for jobs or explore different career options. Their mentor guides them in weekly check ins. That’s one program that we offer.
The second one is the English language program, where we’re teaching English at five different levels, all taught by volunteer teachers from more than twelve countries around the world.
So in the mentorship program, it’s mostly the soft skills: higher education or online schooling, but on the English language side, it’s improving their English literacy skills.
Question: Is there a curriculum that students get in advance and check in, or does the teacher or tutor show up and do a screenshare?
Answer: Our Victory Afghanistan curriculum team have built our own curriculum. We do give all the materials to the teachers; however, they also have the freedom to provide their own materials. So if the teacher is someone who has learned English as a second language, then whatever helped them in their English language journey, they’re more than welcome to provide it to their students. And if they are people who speak English as their first language, they can use whatever materials helped them in their high school or junior high classes.
So to give you a short answer, we have the curriculum built, but the teachers can provide their own materials in addition to the materials that we have built for them.
Question: And are students getting that live or in advance?
Answer: So in the classrooms, we publish weekly lectures. So for example, the Friday before, we will be publishing the lectures for the upcoming week, and any assignments. So students get access to that just the week before.
The intermediate and advanced level students take four classes with us per week. Two are with the core teacher - that’s where they learn grammar, reading, writing - and two hours with the speaking instructor. So the speaking instructor practices the same materials that the core teacher has covered, and provides opportunities to practice in conversation with the students.
The lower level classes initially just have two hours with the core teacher, and then once they are able to hold a conversation, they have an extra hour with the speaking instructor.
Question: Does your program work with Afghans living outside of Afghanistan?
Answer: More than 90 percent of our students are based in Afghanistan and come from more than 21 provinces. We’ve also made an exception for some Afghan students to join from Iran and Pakistan, where they have migrated. The reason is that these countries don’t allow schooling for these new immigrants. But other than that, more than 90 percent come from Afghanistan.
About the volunteers, they come from more than twelve countries around the world. They have different backgrounds: educational or career backgrounds.
Question: There’s been discussion in the media about the risks female students take to attend secondary school. Can you speak to the safety and legal concerns around these students, their families, and/or instructors?
Answer: All girls and women have been banned above sixth grade from going to school, university, or work. Now, the reason we started Victory Afghanistan was to make online education accessible to them, to youth in Afghanistan, focusing on girls and women. However, the political system in Afghanistan has not made any public announcements on online education yet.
One of the reasons they have limited women from going to school is because they believe women should not be leaving their homes and that they belong in the house: That’s their ideology. And based on that, they have limited these women. However, because there have been no public announcements that you cannot take online classes, there hasn’t been a risk of, let’s say, the Internet being cut. On the family side, most of these students have great support from their parents and their siblings if they’re attending classes, and they’re very supportive of them.
Again, because the students have no jobs, they cannot buy a smartphone or pay for the Internet every month. It might not be the case for 100% of all the students, but for most of them, their family is supporting them.
So legally, there haven't been any challenges with these online classes. The Victory Afghanistan team has not received any threats for offering these classes to women in Afghanistan, but we never know if or when they’re going to announce that women are also banned from learning remotely from their homes.
Question: Is there anything else that you would like to share about the program?
Answer: The commitment to be a volunteer with the program is four hours per week, so two hours is teaching and another two other hours is preparing and grading student assignments, all of the good stuff. We’re always open to accepting new volunteers and accepting new students. We don’t have a requirement for our students to limit them from applying to the program. The only thing they have to do is click on the form and then submit it. When we receive it, they’re going to go on the waitlist. When we get new teachers on board, they’re going to be added to the class. So the only requirement for them is to either be in Afghanistan or an immigrant in Iran or Pakistan and to be above grade six where there are no options for school or work. That is our only requirement. 50% of our students are between the ages of 21 and 26, so they have graduated high school and often have some university experience and perhaps a bachelor degree. And then 30% of the students are between the ages of 16 to 21, so those are fresh high school graduates or high school students, or just entered university. 20% of students are 26 and above. We also have students who are more than 38 years old and they’re still doing the program: A mom is in the program alongside her daughter.
Question: Are there particular subjects that students are interested in? Longterm, [they want to] learn English to then [do what]?
Answer: Yes, there are. So, one of the immediate requests we have received from our students is: Can you also offer computer programs to us in addition to English? We haven’t started working on that yet, on the skills to be able to do that.
And the reason they learn English is because they want to be able to apply for scholarships, universities abroad, schools abroad: the option to either travel to get their education or be able to continue their education through universities and schools abroad [through] online learning. That has been the goal for most of them.