Senior Coordinator for International Women's Issues April Palmerlee's Trip to Afghanistan

(photos by DOS - Sally Hodgson)

Principal of the Ashaqan Arefan school in Kabul, Afghanistan, Mohammed Asghar Zakhail, distributes US-donated school supplies to eager students in one of the school's 23 first grade classes. The school has so many first grade classes because girls were banned from attending school during the five-year rule of the Taliban.	Some of the girls attending one of the 23 first grade classes at the Ashaqan Arefan school. Ages of the girls and boys in first grade range from 6-12 years.
Some of the girls who attend first grade at the Ashaqan Arefan school.	Senior Coordinator for International Women's Issues April Palmerlee distributes US-donated school supplies to students at the Ashaqan Arefan school. More than 4000 students, both boys and girls, attend classes there in three shifts each day.
Two sisters, 6-year-old Ferishta (with the green scarf) and Shabham, 7 years old, (left) attending first grade at the Ashaqan Arefan school in Kabul, Afghanistan. Both girls want to be teachers when they grow up.