After August 15, when Kabul fell to the Taliban and our little school shut its doors along with almost everything else in Afghanistan, the level of shock and unreality lingered for days. Fear, confusion, sadness reigned.
But as so often happens, a little light began to shine. In our case, it came on September 5 in the form of a caring email from two visionary Montessori women in Portugal, Maria and Catarina, founders of the Garden of Discovery, an organization dedicated to manifesting Maria Montessori’s vision of peace. They had heard about MEPO and the Garden of Flowers in Kabul. They wrote us and simply asked, “What can we do to help?” Our response felt like asking for the moon: “Once we reopen, we need better technology in order to connect our teachers with other Montessorians, to support them so they can get training and mentorship so they become even stronger Montessori guides. And this is with the goal of expanding our Montessori program to make it available to even more children in Kabul…” (The Taliban were not going to stop us!)
Their response: “Let’s do this! In two days, we are hosting a month-long online AMI (Association Montessori Internationale) orientation training for age 3-6 certification. We would like to offer two free spots for your teachers! We will help in any way possible. We will translate documents into Dari for them. We will make a Whatsapp group with them to provide technical support. We will do whatever we can to help them succeed and get their certificate!”
This was a gift of gold. And the timing couldn’t have been better. When school was open, Fatima and Razia could never have managed 3 nights of training a week – but now they were stuck at home because of the Taliban. It was perfect, in some backwards way!
They were very excited to hear of this opportunity. Over the next 2 days we frantically registered them for the course and Mostafa spent hours helping them learned how to do Zoom on their phones (They do not have a computer at home.) And by September 7, our two Afghan teachers were logging in with people from around the world, all eager to learn Montessori education.
Suddenly from a place of deep isolation arose profound connection.
Fatima and Razia were overjoyed to be part of such a group. They were challenged, to be sure, by the English, by the timing (their 11:30 pm – 1:30 am f!), by the writing assignments. But they were uplifted by the incredible support of their trainer Kay Urquhart and their classmates, and especially by that of Maria and Catarina, who tirelessly sent translations of Kay’s slides and training notes (thank goodness for Google Translate!) and cheered them on during the whole month of intense training work.
Fatima sent frequent updates about her training experience over coming days:
I am proud that I could join in an INTERNATIONAL teacher ‘s training as a delegation of Montessori teachers in Afghanistan 🤗😁💖👌 !
Last night me and Razia jan enjoyed from the course . Because we just listened , watched and memorized. It was very interesting! We saw other active Montessori teachers from different countries too 😁
Hello my dear sister jan yesterday training course went very well . We learned about four stages of development . We saw the Graph of human development.
And I could talk with some of teachers 😁 and I was proud that I am also with all Montessori teachers in the world ! WoW i had a very good time with them !
Our teacher told me ;- put a heart in the group so I could put the red heart symbol in the group.
They other teachers asked me :- are there any other Montessori school in Afghanistan? I told no our school is the only one Montessori school in Afghanistan 😁 and the teachers asked me what time is it in Afghanistan? I told it is 1:30 am . She told me ;- well done that you are awake and listening the lesson . I told your teaching is very interesting because of that still I am awake 😁!
Thank you very much to join me in the very standard training ! 😚😙😗
One day, the trainer Kay asked Fatima and Razia if they would be willing to talk to the group about their work in Afghanistan. Fatima was a little nervous. She shared her notes of what she wanted to say:
At first in 2002 we had house of flowers for 30 orphan students in Kabul Afghanistan up to 2019 so after that we could change the house of flowers to the Garden of flowers !
● In the Garden of flowers we start with 3 -6 Age children we gave bath and learning them how to brushing teeth , and we gave them every year the worm medicine to be healthy and we also gave them good meals and fresh fruit and we teach them by help of Montessori method . madam Alison Lide will help us how to teach the children so we could prepare Montessori teaching materials especially practical life materials, sensorial materials, language materials, mathematic materials , art materials
● so we saw many changes to the children’s growth and development their knowledge , our students could write booklets for their self 😁 In these cases the children’s family were full of wonder! They said ;- which kind of magic you doing with our children that in very slight time they become literate ! We told that is not any magic but we use a very especial method by the name of Montessori teaching kids method so children’s family told WOW for this wonderful method in Afghanistan!
I think Montessori method in Afghanistan is very important. This method supports those poor Families to develop their children’s knowledge without paying money .in the future If we could prepare huge Montessori environment in Afghanistan so we need your help to develop more needy children in Afghanistan .
Fatima asked Kay to read her notes to the group, and Fatima said later:
The teacher read my message about HoF and GoF ! And another teacher asked me questions and I could answer her questions by English, and Razia jan told it was very nice 😁 The group members told that they love our work in Afghanistan 😁 WOW!!!!! I am very happy to have the Montessori group 😁
On October 4, Fatima and Razia had their last day of training. They said goodbye to all their new friends around the world, and were renewed with enthusiasm to reopen the Garden of Flowers for more children. They know now even more deeply how important their work is for Afghanistan and for the world.
As of today, the team is eagerly searching for a new house to re-open the Garden of Flowers by the first week of November. And our newly trained teachers are ready to lead the way for more children.
We can never fully express our debt of gratitude to Maria, Catarina and Kay for the spirit-enlivening support and encouragement they gave to Fatima and Razia at such a time of national despair. Maria, Catarina and Kay embody the true spirt of Montessori’s work themselves, reminding us that it is about more than just the children. It is about how we live our lives together.