News

Alliance Founder Wins Phi Beta Kappa Pathfinder Award
May, 2008

On May 1, 2008, the Alliance’s founder and Executive Director, Lisa Herb, was presented with the Pathfinder Award by the Puget Sound Association of Phi Betta Kappa. The award was presented to Lisa for her work in providing long-distance educational opportunities for women in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Lisa accepted the award on behalf of all the Alliance’s hard-working and dedicated volunteers who make the Alliance’s programs possible. Lisa also dedicated the award to the women and girls of Afghanistan, who, despite years of extreme hardship and conflict, continue to hope and to reach out to the world for opportunities and education. It is their courage and strength that inspires us to do what we do.

 

Use Your ESL Skills To Help Afghan Women From the Comfort of Your Home!
June, 2008

The Alliance for International Women’s Rights is currently seeking three volunteer women ESL professionals who are willing to teach long-distance English classes to Afghan women.

The Alliance is a nonprofit organization devoted to supporting women’s rights efforts in the Central Asia region, including Afghanistan. Our efforts include increasing the English capacity of Afghan women leaders and future women leaders – including Afghan women’s rights workers, women politicians, women educators and promising young Afghan high school girls. The volunteer positions do not involve any travel – the ESL teachers teach Afghan women and girls from the comfort of their own homes using Skype® and E-mail.

Volunteer requirements are as follows:

  • Must be a native English speaker with ESL/EFL certification or teaching experience.
  • Volunteers need to have a reliable computer, high-speed internet, Skype® software (free software is found at www.skype.com), and a headset. We only use Skype’s free computer-to-computer software. We do not use the paid computer-to-phone service. We also do not yet use web cameras because they do not work well in Afghanistan.
  • The volunteers will need to be available to teach one student for two 45-minute sessions per week, for a minimum of three months.
  • We currently need two teachers who are available for classes between the hours of 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 pm in Afghanistan’s time zone. We also need one teacher who is available for classes between the hours of 6:00 pm and 10:00 pm, Afghanistan time. Interested applicants should determine if they are available for two 45 minute sessions during these hours by comparing their local time to Afghanistan time on the following website: http://www.timezoneconverter.com. The time zone is the same throughout Afghanistan, so you may use the city of Kabul for the time zone conversions. We ask that you please determine your availability during the required hours before applying. The class times we are currently recruiting for are generally most suitable for teachers who are located in Europe, Asia, Australia or New Zealand or on the west coast of North America.
  • Although the Alliance welcomes volunteers of either gender in most of our programs, due to the Afghan culture we are only able to work with women teachers for this project for the safety of the Afghan women and girls.

Please consider using your skills to help Afghan women. If you are interested, please contact Lisa Herb, the Alliance’s president, at lisaherb@aiwr.org.

 

Alliance Receives Support From Three Generous Organizations
April, 2008

Over the last six months, the Alliance has been able to leap forward in its work with Afghan women due to three generous grants from The Gratia Ainslie Foundation, Washington Mutual Bank and USAID’s Higher Education Project (HEP). All three of these grants have been in support of the Alliance’s Armchair ESL Program for Afghan women. The Armchair ESL Program matches Afghan women and girls with experienced, volunteer English teachers from the U.S. and other Western, English speaking countries. Each student and teacher pair meet on-line twice a week, via Skype™, for live English classes, using both voice and instant messaging features. In addition to providing individualized English lessons to Afghan women and girls, the classes provide both the students and teachers with a unique opportunity to directly meet and learn about each others’ cultures. This unique cultural exchange helps to build better understanding and stronger relationships between the Western world and Afghanistan, one person at a time. (For more information on our Armchair ESL Program, please see our Armchair Volunteering page.) With the help of the three grants, the Alliance has been able to double its Armchair ESL Program from ten Afghan students to over twenty women and girls. The Alliance hopes to continue to expand its Armchair ESL Program so that it can continue to open the world to more Afghan women and girls.

 

Alliance Launches New Website
April, 2008

Thanks to the generous support of USAID’s Higher Education Project (HEP), the Alliance has completely updated and revised its website. The new website will soon contain many interactive features for its Central Asian partners and volunteers. These interactive features include a private Alliance Chat page, where Central Asian women can sign into a private, password-protected chat room to practice English and have a direct cultural exchange with an Alliance volunteer. The Alliance plans to launch the Alliance Chat by the end of May, 2008. Alliance volunteers and partners will also soon be able to sign into a password protected blog called the Alliance Forum, where guest experts will post lectures on topics related to women’s rights in Central Asia and then lead a follow-up discussion relating to the lecture. Stay tuned for more information about these and other new features!