This year we introduce a new BOFA ….GENDER BOFA, where we find films from around the world dealing with women’s rights, gender equality and issues important to the LGBTI community.
In What Tomorrow Brings director Beth Murphy follows one year in the life of the first all-girls school in a remote, conservative Afghan village, where fathers have never before allowed their daughters to be educated. The film traces the stories of those who bring the school to life: students, teachers, village elders, parents, and school founder, humanitarian Razia Jan. The film’s thought provoking themes will be discussed by the audience and the team from Project O, a Tasmanian based initiative of Big hART, helping young women develop new capabilities, learning how to become change-makers in their community.
While the girls learn to read and write, their education goes far beyond the classroom as they discover that school is the one place they can turn to understand the differences between the lives they were born into and the lives they dream of leading.
Even nearly 15 years after the fall of the Taliban, issues of safety, a lack of female teachers, and cultural pressures combine to prevent girls from getting an education.
“The status of girls’ education in Afghanistan right now, if I could sum it up in one word, is precarious,” says director Beth Murphy, who has been working in the region for nearly a decade.
Upon returning to Afghanistan after the war, Razia Jan saw the blow dealt to women’s education by the Taliban. Despite facing resistance from men in her community, Jan has successfully grown the school since its inception in 2008.
Murphy, founder of Principle Pictures, recently partnered with The Ground Truth Project to continue documenting the school’s progress. She praised Jan’s “holistic approach” to change, one which effectively earned the support of the community.
“The change has been really dramatic, the change in perception, the change in mindset. I think we would say it’s incredible if it happened in a generation, and here it’s happened in eight years.” Murphy says.
Thanks to this support, seven girls celebrated becoming the school’s first graduating class in November 2015. Jan ensured they would continue their education by launching a crowdfunding campaign, which raised over USD$120,000 to build the first women’s community college in rural Afghanistan.
All the graduates are enrolled in the midwifery program at the Razia Jan Institute. The health clinic at the school will function as a teaching hospital while also providing much needed healthcare services to the community.
Though schools are still at risk of attack, current estimates place the number of girls enrolled in schools at 2.5 million, a vast improvement from the enrollment under the Taliban. Murphy said she’s seen the situation improve dramatically over the past eight years and hopes Jan’s model can be replicated in other communities.
(N’dea Yancey-Bragg – Solutions)
SUNDAY 10.15am
ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN