What Tomorrow Brings

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PBS Premiere: Oct. 31, 2016Check the broadcast schedule »

Filmmaker Statement

My last two feature films--Beyond Belief and The List--grappled with the human consequences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While filming in Afghanistan for Beyond Belief (Tribeca Film Festival, SundanceTV), I witnessed the terrible isolation, desperation and poverty that often accompany a life without education. Since then, I've made a personal commitment to return to Afghanistan and share with the world my conviction that education is the number one way to empower women and strengthen families and communities.

It's true that in a society as conservative as the one in Deh'Subz (the setting for What Tomorrow Brings) the lives of girls are not going to change unless the people around them--their mothers and fathers and husbands--also change. But the changes in these girls that education brings--the confidence and independence--are changing the people around them in profound ways.

I started filming in 2009--shortly after the Zabuli girls' school opened. My final shoot was in December 2015 at the school's very first graduation. What I witnessed during the years of filming has been remarkable, and the transition made by this community has been dramatic. It has transformed from a village that did not support girls' education to one in which fathers and elders are excited to send their daughters to college.

During this time, I learned that meaningful, lasting change occurs only when it is created in ways that respect the local culture. Everything about Zabuli fits within conservative Muslim village life. The girls' education helps them contribute in a meaningful way to their families and lift up the community as a whole, while still allowing them to be observant Muslim women.

According to the Afghan Ministry of Education, there are currently about 14,000 schools in Afghanistan, of which only 15 percent are for girls. Of the total 412 rural and urban districts in the country, there are only 151 districts with at least one upper secondary girls' school. The Zabuli school started with 109 students. Today there are more than 500 girls going to school in kindergarten through 12th grade. In the years I have been filming there, the number of students in kindergarten through fifth grade has doubled. Slowly, parents and elders are chipping away at attitudes that keep girls out of the classroom across Afghanistan, and I want to share a story that shows what's possible.

It's not easy, but it is possible.

The residents of this village have not only embraced the school--they have become its protectors. Village elders meet with administrators each month for state-of-the-school briefings. At these meetings, they are always asked if they have any concerns and worries about the school before they are asked, again, to pledge to protect it.

I believe there is an urgency to this story. Nearly 15 years after the fall of the Taliban, an increase in girls' education is touted is one of the great success stories in Afghanistan. But the gains in girls' education and women's rights are at risk of being traded away as the security climate declines, humanitarian organizations leave the country because of safety issues and the Afghan government searches for a settlement with the Taliban. In areas where Taliban influence is on the rise, women's rights are under attack. Taliban forces have attacked girls' schools and murdered women in leadership positions.

According to "Education and Healthcare at Risk," a report from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), in 2015 there were 132 cases in which schools or school personnel were attacked or threatened--an 86 percent increase from 2014, and a 110 percent increase from 2013. This led to the closing or partial closing of more than 369 schools, affecting at least 139,048 students and 600 teachers.

Girls are particularly vulnerable. According to the report, 213 girls' schools were shut down last year, denying nearly 51,000 girls access to education. In addition to closing schools, anti-government forces created additional barriers to education for women and girls by prohibiting them from obtaining education beyond fourth or sixth grade, and in many cases by completely banning them from going to school.

Girls in Deh'Subz are learning to read and write for the very first time. But their education goes far beyond the classroom. Girls are learning what it means to become women in Afghanistan, and how they can use their voices. Education gives these girls a way to influence their own futures and creates opportunities that otherwise would never have existed.

This is what is at stake. Without attention being paid to the basic rights of women and girls, the hard-won freedoms of the last 14 years can quickly unravel.

Because the Afghan government has neither the personnel nor the funding to provide protection for the school, the community's role is critical. A new and remarkably comprehensive report from the Global Coalition to Protect Education From Attack points out that in threatened educational institutions around the world, community engagement and even community guards like those at the Zabuli School may be the key to keeping students safe.

Even at the best of times in Afghanistan, educating girls means striking a precarious balance between hope and tradition. These girls, their teachers and the school administrators face serious threats and formidable obstacles every day. I think they have earned the right to be heard. And I am hopeful that while What Tomorrow Brings calls attention to the precariousness of girls' education in Afghanistan, it will also spotlight a community that is lighting the way for others.

--Beth Murphy, Director/Producer