April 12, 2021
Chairman of the Bayat Foundation, Dr. Ehsanullah Bayat has laid the first brick at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Center that will be built by the foundation at the Michelle Bayat Sara Miyasht High School in Kabul.
An estimated US$500,000 will be spent on the center, which once complete will provide students with direct access to an innovative, practical learning environment for STEM subjects.
“The center will be established for young people to learn through new methods, through creativity, critical thinking, and better leadership. It will also provide access for them to automated machines, drones, and other advanced devices along with computer programming,” Dr Bayat said.
Science and mathematics are critical elements of a modern education and in most of Afghanistan, science is taught using outdated approaches and materials, in classrooms equipped with nothing more than a simple blackboard and chalk. Most Afghan students do not currently have access to properly equipped laboratories where theoretical science can be demonstrated through practical, hands-on experiments.
The new STEM Center at the Michelle Bayat Sara Miyasht High School will however go a long towards opening up new doors to dedicated students striving for a better life.
This opinion was reflected by guests attending the event on October 10, 2020, in Kabul, including representatives from the Afghan Red Crescent Society. “Students are here who will take advantage of this opportunity in the future, indeed, it benefits Afghanistan,” the society’s acting managing director Mirwais Akram said.
The organization’s secretary-general Neelab Mubariz stated: “The center will help train the youth who will be able to address the needs of Afghanistan within the next ten years.”
Excited students from Michelle Bayat Sara Miyasht High School also expressed their excitement at the new unit and said it will make an enormous difference for them when it comes to practical lessons. They also said it will help pave the way for them to enter university once they had graduated from high school.
One excited student, Farmina, said: “We do not have such technology at the moment to gain theoretical and practical lessons.”
ABOUT BAYAT FOUNDATION
The Bayat Foundation is dedicated to the health, education and well-being of the people of Afghanistan, regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, or religion, by providing for those in-need and unlocking the potential of widows, women, children, youth and men through programs and partnerships.
The foundation has over the past 14 years, since its establishment in 2006, worked hard to provide quality healthcare for women and newborns, increase access to education through new or refurbished schools, encourage economic empowerment through entrepreneurship, provide social justice, help strengthen families, establish competitive sporting events and it has worked hard to cement cultural preservation.
To date, the foundation has helped hundreds of thousands of needy families in all 34 provinces in Afghanistan.