BAMYAN UNIVERSITY (BU)
Visiting Bamyan Province and Conducting Chevening Scholarship information session in in Bamyan University. SAHERO management has made great Preparation and decided to conduct their first Chevening Scholarship information session in Bamyan Province on Oct 5th Coordination and close collaboration with British Embassy and updating them regarding Bamyan visit. As always issuing of official letter and clear stating SAHERO by the MoE department of afghan NGOs to the directorate of Bamyan. Close Coordination with directorate of Bamyan University about the venue, date and timing of the information session. Encouragement and motivation of Female undergraduate Students to participate fully and actively in the Chevening Scholarship sessions. Preparation of Checklist of all the materials for the information session such as banners, leaflet, stand banners, flip charts etc. Time for Q&A and open discussion regarding Chevening Scholarship and sharing the other provinces session experiences at last.
ACTIVITIES
SAHERO has made all the arrangement and made close coordination with the directorates of Bamyan University to conduct their first information session in Bamyan University.as it was planned to conduct the first Chevening Scholarship information session the SAHERO team has made all the required and necessary arrangement.
As the session was planned to be held in Bamyan University Hall at 10:00am to 12:00am on 5th of Oct 2016 and the agenda was always shared with British Embassy and Bamyan University.
But, we had never expect that the Dr.Richard Moon the Deputy Ambassador of British Embassy along with Dr.Mirza Jahani the Senior Governance Adviser of DFID Afghanistan and Mr.Naseer Najwa the Political officer in this information session.
Due to the matter of fact, that we had a very good timing with British Representatives in this Chevening Scholarship Information session. Miss Masooma Khawari the Director of Bamyan University has welcomed and really appreciated the participation and delivering a wonderful message by the Deputy Ambassador. She has really appreciated the work of SAHERO regarding Chevening Scholarship program and the way how SAHERO delivers the message and facilitate the students accordingly. She has added during her speech that Bamyan is one of the Provinces of Afghanistan that needs great attention especially in education sector and I really appreciate the coordination of British embassy as they did in the past years.
Distribution of Chevening Scholarship brochures, holding the Chevening banners on the walls and posting some stand banners on the main entrance made the session very vivid and colorful and gave a very good look and impressive. This magnificent work was done by the SAHERO representatives and did announcement of the session through social media page of Bamyan University which has given a very positive response to the session.
According to the agenda we planned to start the session at 10:00am but due to participation of Deputy Ambassador we have postponed the information session and waited till his participation.
The session was started 30 mints late .and participation of Ambassador was totally a surprise to us and to the participants. Because SAHERO was not informed regarding the Deputy Ambassador visit to Bamyan and as well as participation to the Chevening Scholarship information session. But we were very lucky to have these honorable in this session.
The opening of the session was done by Miss Arifa Hassanyar. She has welcomed both the British Embassy and SAHERO team as it was the first they have visited Bamyan and Bamyan University and we hope they found this trip more interesting and fruitful.
Miss Masooma Khawari the Director of Bamyan University in her speech motivated and encouraged both male and female students to apply and get benefit of this outstanding opportunity.
She has requested from Deputy Ambassador to assist the students in providing IELTS and TOEFL iBT couching class to Bamyan Students.
The director of SAHERO Mr. Qudrat Wahid also welcomed the Deputy Ambassador, DFID representatives and thanked Bamyan University Director for the efforts and close coordination and hope to make a strong link and create a positive lasting relationship with British Embassy and SAHERO.He has briefly defined the importance of Chevening Scholarship program and how the students respond.
As we have the experience of both Government Universities and Private Universities from different provinces during the implementation of this project. Students have shown great keen and we are sure about the moto and ambition that they have to be awarded Chevening Scholarships and to study in of the world class universities of UK
It is fact and fact has no challenge that we care for the suggestion that is made by Miss Masooma Khawari regarding IELTS and TOEFL iBT Couching class in Bamyan. We have faced same problem in major provinces and students have suggested for couching classes and I am very happy that we have Dr.Richard Moon the Deputy Ambassador of British Embassy along with Dr.Mirza Jahani the Senior Governance Adviser of DFID Afghanistan and Mr.Naseer Najwa the Political officer with us. I promise that we will jointly work on this issue as soon as we reached to Kabul and will find ways to solve this problem.
Ideas have the way of taking shape always first cannot be the beginning, conducting the first session in Bamyan University was a very good experience and we expect too much from this visit. And we have found out that students are very happy about Chevening Scholarship information session in their university.
On behalf of Bamyan University Miss Masooma Khawari the Director of Bamyan University thanked the honorable guests for their precious time to come and participate in the first Chevening Scholarship information session and she hope that Mr. Richard Moon will find this trip more exciting and we hope he along with his colleagues will visit again and again.
The Deputy Ambassador really appreciate the work of SAHERO for organizing such wonderful and magnificent Chevening Scholarship information session.
“Of course, it was a surprise and I am very delighted and never expected such a magnificent session,” Said by British Embassy Deputy Ambassador.
Pictures were taken during Dr.Richard Moon Speech on Chevening Scholarships information session in Bamyan University
Dr.Richard Moon really appreciated the hard work of SAHERO and felt really glade, as it was his first visit to Bamyan and for the first time participated in Chevening Scholarships program information session. He called upon the students that you people still have time to apply because the deadline is 8 November 2016.
Due to the shortage of time Mr. Moon has also listened to the suggestions and respond to the questions of participants with coordination of SAHERO.Many students insist to launch some IELTS and TOEFL iBT courses in Bamyan. He has write down all the important suggestions and promised that we will jointly work with SAHERO regarding these issues. During his speech he said that we have increased the Chevening Scholarship to 25% for Afghanistan which is a very good sign and it is a great change and increase in numbers of Scholarships.
As always the Social Awareness for Humanitarian and Environmental Resource Organization presents Chevening Scholarship program information session in a very professional way in the shape of English presentation.
Bamyan is one the provinces were majority does not understand English, that is why we have presented the information session both in Dari and English. It was just for better understanding and sharing the information.
Chevening Scholarships transparency is known to everyone in more than 160 countries of the world, and you can get one year Master’s degree in any UK universities.SAHERO is the only organization that can Implement this program for the first time in Afghanistan and have gotten massive experience to provide TA regarding selection of courses and finding suitable universities.
We really encourage young and intellectual females’ students to apply and be the future leaders, decision makers and great influencers.
Pictures were taken during presentation session of Chevening Scholarships in Bamyan University
During any information session we have Q&A as well, and this time Dr.Moon himself was ready to answer some of the question duing the session and it was a really good moment when you see an Ambassador so close to participants and listened to the question of students.
Pictures were taken during Q&A session by Dr.Moon
After The Chevening Scholarships information session the Deputy Ambassador of British Embassy and Senior Governance Adviser of DFID Afghanistan meet SAHERO team and really appreciated the hard work and look forward to having many other information sessions in other provinces of Afghanistan.
As it is clear that we still have time to share and conduct Chevening Scholarships programs in our targeted provinces to complete our target according to the plan. So we have not completed and not reached to our target yet. That is why SAHERO tries to reach the specific target before 8 November 2016.
ISSUES and CHALLENGES
- As it is known to everyone that security is the biggest issue in Afghanistan and Conducting Chevening Scholarship information session in Bamyan was a great challenge for SAHERO team.
But we need to reach our target before 8 November 2016, and we cannot miss any planned session. So to reach Bamyan safe and on time we have decided to go by Airplane rather than by road. We are trying our level best to give 100% and we did in Bamyan University.
- Listen Learned:
Experiencing similar issue as we did in previous information session in various provinces of Afghanistan, IELTS and TOEFL iBT couching classes and short courses. So we hope to overcome this challenge and to pay a closer look to this important issue in future.
