Who we are

Three decades of education, health and hope

The Afghan Institute of Learning has worked alongside Afghan communities since 1995 — through war, exile and restriction — to keep classrooms open and clinics running.

Our story

It began in a refugee camp

In 1995, Dr. Sakena Yacoobi was working in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan when women there asked her for one thing: schools for their daughters. She founded the Afghan Institute of Learning that year, and the first learning centres opened in the camps a year later.

When girls’ education was banned under Taliban rule, AIL did not stop. The organisation quietly ran 80 underground home schools serving 3,000 girls — teaching in living rooms and courtyards, with teachers who risked everything to keep them open.

As families returned home, AIL followed them into Afghanistan. Learning centres and health clinics opened across the provinces, and in 2003 the organisation founded Gawhar Shad University to give Afghan women a route into higher education. By 2013 AIL was running 38 women’s learning centres and five clinics with 450 staff — seventy per cent of them Afghan women.

The method has never changed: AIL enters a community only when that community asks. Programmes are designed with the people they serve and led, in large part, by the women of that community. It is why the work has survived thirty years of upheaval.

Milestones

Thirty years, step by step

The moments that shaped how AIL works today.

1995

Founded in exile

Dr. Sakena Yacoobi establishes AIL in the Afghan refugee camps of Pakistan, at the request of women there.
1996

First learning centres

Classes open in the camps — literacy, numeracy and health education for women and girls.
Late 1990s

Eighty schools

With girls’ education banned, AIL runs 80 home schools serving 3,000 girls in secret.
2003

Gawhar Shad University

AIL founds a university so Afghan women have a route into higher education.
2013

Thirty-eight centres

38 women’s learning centres and five clinics, run by 450 staff — 70% of them Afghan women.
Today

A national model

AIL’s preschool model and teacher-training curriculum are adopted into national programmes.
Our direction

Vision, Mission & Values

A peaceful Afghanistan where everyone knows how to read and every family has access to quality healthcare.

Our Vision

An educated, healthy and self-reliant Afghanistan where women and men build their communities
together.

Our Mission

Education, training and health services that expand opportunity, designed with communities and delivered close to home.

Our Values

Dignity, equality and compassion. We believe changing a woman’s life improves a community and builds a nation.
500000Students educated
29795Teachers trained
3300000Patients served
11Provinces covered
Leadership

The people behind the work

AIL is led by Afghans, and largely by Afghan women — the same communities the programmes serve.

Dr. Sakena Yacoobi

Founder & Executive Director

Dr. Yacoobi holds a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and a master’s in public health. She founded AIL in 1995 while working with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and led the network of underground schools that kept 3,000 girls in education during the years when it was forbidden.

She has been recognised internationally for that work, and continues to lead AIL’s programmes across education, health and community leadership.

Programme Director

Oversees learning centres, teacher training and curriculum across all provinces.

Health Director

Leads the clinics, mobile outreach teams and community health worker network.

Finance & Compliance

Manages budgets, donor reporting and the annual audit.

See the work in the field

Read the stories from our learning centres, clinics and partner communities.

Success StoriesSuccess Stories