Programs

Connecting Women Across the Globe To Support Women’s Rights

The Alliance’s Volunteer Programs take advantage of free Internet-based communication technology to help open the world to women in developing countries through long-distance volunteers. The volunteers use Skype and e-mail to meet long distance with Afghan women and girls to provide individual education and mentoring. The exchanges that occur through this process helps to bridge two worlds and improve understanding between what are often very different cultures. The following is a brief introduction to our Afghanistan Volunteer Programs.

The English Program - Opening the World to Afghan Women

The purpose of the English Program is to increase the English capacity of Afghan women leaders and future women leaders by offering live, long-distance, one-on-one English classes. By improving their English skills, Afghan women and girls can more easily reach out to the international community for information, advice and funding, as well as sharing their experiences with the world. Improved English skills also help Afghan women obtain employment and educational opportunities.

The English 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.

The Alliance currently operates its English Program in partnership with the Afghan Canadian Community Center in Kandahar through funding from the U.S. Department of State.

The Mentor Program – Providing International Mentoring

The Mentor Program helps build the capacity of Afghan women leaders by offering live, long-distance, one-on-one mentoring relationships with American women mentors. The Mentor Program selects qualified American women professionals to provide long-distance mentoring to Afghan women and girls in the subject matter of the mentor’s expertise. The mentor and mentee meet weekly via Skype’s free computer-to-computer phone and instant messaging service.

One example of our Mentor Program includes a team of Seattle women attorneys who have been mentoring Afghan women human rights attorneys twice a week via Skype. The mentoring sessions focus on English legal and political terminology relevant to the Afghan attorneys’ work, including discussing the legal and political terminology in the English translation of the Afghan Constitution.

The Mentor Program also provides editing and writing support to its Afghan partner organizations. For example, Mentor Program Volunteers assist Afghan partners with writing and editing documents that have been translated into English, such as grant proposals, website materials, brochures, articles, letters, and reports.