One in four Afghan children experience anxiety — ten times the global average. Fewer than 1% of Afghan children aged 3 to 5 are enrolled in any early learning program. Only 29% are meeting age-appropriate developmental milestones.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world to limit girls' education to elementary schooling. More than 2.2 million girls are denied secondary education, with an additional 400,000 barred each academic year. More than 90% of 10-year-olds cannot read a simple sentence.
Afghanistan's educational system is in freefall. The children's media landscape is bleaker still. The country's only quality educational show, Baghch-e-Simsim, co-produced for Afghanistan by the Sesame Workshop, stopped production in 2019. For Afghan children, educational television is virtually nonexistent.
We work with children's television producers and humanitarian and philanthropic partners to research, create, dub, and distribute educational television to Afghan children at home and around the world. Our work →