“A jurni of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Our world is more interconnected than ever before, giving us greater access to a diverse population with divergent ideas. Our friends and acquaintances are no longer those in real life, but those in the digital communities we have immersed ourselves in. And yet, with all the different levels of access and interaction we have developed online, we still feel alone and lack the meaningful relationships with others we would like to develop.
JURNI has been active for the past four months and our hope is to be able to share and highlight some of our unique users. We had an American medical doctor use JURNI to document her travels to Greece to help with the migrant crisis; we had a young man born with Cystic Fibrosis, who with great courage and excitement posted a video sharing his relief on finding an organ donor in time to celebrate his 25th birthday. These are the stories that one finds on JURNI — stories of hope, accomplishments, and sometimes failures and frustrations.
During the time of our launch we were fortunate to discover an organization called SAHAR, a nonprofit based in Seattle whose mission is to provide access to education by building schools for girls in Afghanistan. Aided by communities and partners across the country, SAHAR and its dedicated partners have built and supplied eighteen new schools in Afghanistan and have many more projects in their pipeline. Altogether, SAHAR serves over 20,000 Afghan students each school year,in a region where many girls are unlikely to have such privileges. Schools have been built in Afghanistan, teachers are receiving the training they need to effectively teach, and students are being exposed to technology. The focus on technology training has led to SAHAR and an equally important organization dedicated to the empowerment of Afghan women, Code to Inspire, to collaborate and work towards improving the technical literacy of their students. Code to Inspire’s mission is help Afghan women achieve economic independence by teaching them the valuable skill of coding, which will allow them to work independently as tech entrepreneurs and freelancers. Code to Inspire, a recent recipient of Google’s RISE award, aims to bridge the income and gender gap in Afghanistan and their collaboration with SAHAR is a step in the right direction.
We believe that the importance of technological literacy and the ability to code is as essential as reading and writing in an increasingly digital world and are prepared to do our part to push this initiative further. We recently sent a few iPods to SAHAR in the hope that it will assist them with their coding education and will encourage others to learn more about SAHAR and Code as a beacon of tangible change. By allowing these girls to express themselves through JURNI, we are giving them a voice — a voice that unfortunately has been suppressed in their part of the world, particularly for women. We are proud and excited to be a part of this initiative, and hope to be able to engage in meaningful connections with the girls in the coding project.
In order to transform the world, we must be willing to take the first step. Our gift to SAHAR is our first step, and we hope our contribution helps inspire the students of Afghanistan. The chief goal here is that JURNI will allow people of the modern world to see the similarities we have and break down the false barriers built upon perceived difference. Let’s walk along our virtual path to a better future together.
Visit SAHAR and Code to Inspire to learn more, and download JURNI to see their stories unfold.
