We all know the importance of educating girls (and boys, too) in poor Muslim countries.

So it is exciting to come across a successful educational model developed by an unusual Afghan educator to teach poor minority children. And it’s a model with a special link to Philadelphia.

Kabul’s Marefat School, the brainchild of Aziz Royesh, was built by the residents of a minority slum and teaches not only educational basics but principles of civic responsibility and humanistic values. I have visited the school and was bowled over by what it has accomplished.

But equally fascinating: Last week, the National Constitution Center brought Royesh and a gaggle of Afghan boys in suits and girls in headscarves to Philly, where the Marefat School has been paired with Constitution High School, a predominantly minority charter school. The link with the Marefat School was made by a young Philadelphian, Jeffrey Stern, who spent two years in Kabul and now manages international projects for the Constitution Center.

Meaning of freedom

Students of both schools are putting together an exhibit of photos about the meaning of freedom to minority groups. It will be shown the second week in May at the Constitution Center and later at the National Museum in Kabul. “Our school should be regarded as a branch of the Constitution Center,” says Royesh. And the Marefat School should be regarded as a model for how Americans can help Afghans get the education they need.

What makes the Marefat story so exceptional is that it was built by poor Afghans who wanted better education for their children using small contributions and sweat equity. The inspiration came from Royesh, a compact man with a neat beard who was forced to abandon his own formal education when he fled the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He educated himself and began setting up schools in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan.

Royesh returned to Kabul after U.S. troops drove the Taliban out in 2001. He wanted to build schools there, especially for his own Hazara minority group, members of the Shiite Muslim sect who had faced severe repression under the Sunni Taliban. He ventured into Dasht-e Barchi, a dusty slum of around two million people, with dirt streets and open markets, with the goal of getting the community involved.

He got locals to contribute land and started his school in a bombed-out building. Fees were modest, much lower than at other Afghan private schools, and they went almost entirely to teacher salaries, with some set aside to pay for the poorest students. When community members were able to raise more money, another classroom would be added. And Royesh, who has studied the Quran and comparative political theory — on his own — put together a curriculum that stressed human rights and civic duties.

Communtiy model

“We did not wait for highly educated people as teachers,” he told me last week in Philadelphia. “I was not highly educated. We got people with a high school education and they could teach through grade six and educate themselves further, and now we have thousands of graduates who can read and write and teach others.

“This is a model that can give a sense of responsibility to the community and help them recognize the value of education,” he said.

When I visited the Marefat School in April — driving over roads so rutted and filled with water that I wasn’t certain we’d make it — it was buzzing with activity. The boys’ building consisted of two simple concrete levels of classrooms with an outdoor balcony and stairways around an open courtyard.

Royesh wanted boys and girls to study together but was forced by Afghan law to put the girls in a separate building. When I visited a senior girls class, the students were talking about their demonstration against a draconian draft law that would have legalized marital rape in the Shiite community. These brave young women had all persuaded their fathers to let them demonstrate — a step unimaginable in the past — because such a law would violate their human rights.

So it seems entirely fitting to see some of these same girls visiting the Constitution Center. Royesh says his students were fascinated by the story of the three U.S. Founding Fathers who refused to sign the Constitution without a Bill of Rights. “I told them that, even if you are a minority of three individuals, you can have an influence.”

Many similarities

Both groups of students say they’ve been startled by the similarities between them and by how mistaken their previous stereotypes had been. “My grandmother prayed that I wouldn’t go,” Zainab Haidari said, “because I’d be a lonely girl in a kafir (infidel) city. I want to bring her another message … and give my message about (the need for) change in Afghanistan.”

Royesh believes such short-term exchanges are much more effective for Afghanistan than longer individual exchange programs. He would like to see the State Department fund more such cultural exchanges, and more enrichment programs for Afghan schools, such as one that sent English teachers to 300 Afghan high schools, including his own. Helping Afghans who want to help themselves learn is clearly a terrific investment for both countries. If the Marefat model could be cloned in Afghanistan and elsewhere, we’d all be better off.

— Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. trubin@phillynews.com