CAI’s 2014 Spring Campaign
CAI has launched its 2014 Spring Campaign! We are asking for your help today to raise $650,000 by September 30, 2014. Every penny you donate to this campaign will go exclusively to CAI’s overseas programs, unless otherwise specified by you.
DONATE NOW!
Spring has finally arrived in the mountains. Trees and flowers are blossoming, the air smells sweet, and the songbirds are singing. It is indeed a season of renewal, rebirth, repentance, and charity.
In many of the remote mountain villages of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan that Central Asia Institute (CAI) serves, early spring is bittersweet. Food stocks are depleted, immune systems are weakened, and snow has meant months of isolation, far from medical care. Too often, babies die in the spring. Yet the season also brings hope and optimism as students head to school for the start of a new academic year.
Sixteen years after the first CAI-supported school opened its doors, we have reached a critical milestone in our efforts to work toward stability and sustainable peace through education – especially for girls. With the support of many thousands of individuals just like you, we have educated a generation of young people, and today our first students are becoming teachers, health workers, and leaders in their communities.
Shakeela is a good example. She attended the CAI-supported school in her village in northern Pakistan. She then received a CAI scholarship for higher education. Now 25, married, and the mother of a little girl, Shakeela is the sole healthcare provider in a valley not far from her childhood home.
“Mostly my work is to give help delivering babies, sometimes in my clinic, sometimes home delivery,” she said. “I cover 16 villages – the whole valley.” She knows women are more likely to die in childbirth if there is no midwife present. So when the call comes for help – she gets there.
Shakeela is among a growing cadre of young CAI graduates who take risks and make sacrifices to sustain the mulit-generational change required to build a better future. Yet their continued success depends upon people like you who see the value of this powerful positive change – especially now.
Your contributions drive this positive change. We are committed to sustaining the enormous investment in the future that we have made together. With ongoing instability in Pakistan, and U.S. forces withdrawing from Afghanistan, the prospects for extremism and violence will likely increase. Local heroes like Shakeela and other CAI graduates can be counted on to carry the ball on their end, but they need our help.
Just before he left the country in February, Gen. John Allen, former commander of U.S. and NATO forces, told Reuters news agency that improved access to education was one of the most important accomplishments in Afghanistan in the past decade. “Here’s an opportunity for this young generation to grow up in an environment where education is inherent in who they are,” he said.
This is an opportunity we cannot miss. Others may be leaving the region, but with your help, CAI will remain in country, creating educational opportunities. We can be counted on. Like you, the women we serve, and Gen. Allen, we know that education is the key to peace, progress, and security. And there’s so much work yet to do.
By making a donation today, you can continue to participate in this essential life-changing work.
Please give generously. The children and their families thank you.
For further questions, concerns, and inquires, please email info@ikat.org.
