BAGHLAN PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN
Their school is built. It just needs a roof.
Three years of work. $30,000 raised. Nine rooms built by hand. It’s finished — except for the roof, and without one it can’t open. $20,000 closes it.
The site today ·
Baghlan province
Nine rooms. Every block carried up a road a truck can't always manage. It is finished except for one thing.
Twenty years under canvas
The school is not new. It has been here for twenty years. What it has never had is a building.
Eight hundred children come to it from sixteen villages. They sit on mats on the ground. In winter the cold comes down off the mountains and they sit in it. In summer the sun stands on the canvas and the air underneath stops moving. When the rains come the ground turns to mud and the lessons stop.
Boys and girls both. Sixteen villages send them, and there is nowhere else for them to go.
Nine rooms — elementary, junior high, and high school under one roof. The first real classrooms any of these children will have sat in.
What’s there now
Stand inside it and you can see the sky.
The walls are up. The floors are poured. The window frames are in, the doorways are cut, the foundation went down three years ago and hasn’t moved an inch since. Somebody carried every one of those blocks up a road a truck can’t always manage.
It’s a school. It looks like a school. Children walk past it. They just can’t go inside, because there’s nothing over their heads.
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Watch the build
Foundations, walls, and beams — three years in three short clips.
What $20,000 does
It puts a roof on it. That’s the whole ask.
| Item | Material | Qty | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roof frame | Metal beams | 830 m | $6,070 |
| Roof frame | Wood | 110 m | $5,918 |
| Roof frame | Welding | — | $350 |
| Roof deck | Plastic sheeting | 31×14 m | $175 |
| Roof deck | Plastic coating | 31×14 m | $180 |
| Masonry | Cement | 73 bags | $740 |
| Item | Material | Qty | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Masonry | Sand | 9 bags | $350 |
| Masonry | Brick | 12,058 | $750 |
| Labor | Skilled labor | — | $1,700 |
| Labor | Carpentry | — | $350 |
| Transport | To site | — | $700 |
| Site works | Retaining wall | — | $2,717 |
| Materials and labor | $17,283 |
| Total | $20,000 |
Ways to give
$20,000 covers a roof for 800 children.
Every level below is a real piece of the roof.
Your name goes on the wall
When the school opens, a permanent plaque inside the building will carry the name of every person who helped finish it. Long after the roof is on, the children will know who put it there.
A PERMANENT PLAQUE INSIDE THE SCHOOL
Other ways to give
Every dollar goes to the roof.
Zelle
Send to
donation@katorfoundation.org
Bank transfer
Account number
629150092
Routing number
322271627
Kator Foundation is a trusted non-profit charity serving the needy people of Northern Afghanistan.
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Registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit · EIN 85-1654570 · Contributions are tax-deductible
The building
Tap the plan to enlarge
Roof beam layout — nine rooms, 350 square meters under roof, beams at 500 mm centres.
There’s a version of this where the money runs out and the building just sits there. Half-built things are all over that region — someone started, someone ran out, and the weather took the rest.
We’re not doing that. Not after three years and not this close.
The budget covers one more thing besides the roof. The school sits below a hill, and when the rains come that hill moves. A retaining wall holds it back. Without it, the first bad season would undo everything.
A roof is a boring thing to raise money for. It’s not a photograph of a smiling child holding a book. But the roof is what makes the photograph possible. Every lesson, every winter it stays open, every child who learns to read in it sits under this one thing we haven’t finished yet.
Questions
Is my donation tax-deductible?
Yes. Kator Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3), EIN 85-1654570. You’ll get a receipt by email right away and a written acknowledgment for your tax records.
What happens if you raise more than $20,000?
Anything past the goal stays with this school — furniture, supplies, and getting the doors open. Nothing gets redirected somewhere else.
What if you don’t reach the goal?
The money stays with the roof. We’ll keep going until it’s covered, however long that takes. We just want it to be this winter instead of the next one.
Can I see how it's going?
Yes — please reach out to us any time and we will tell you exactly where things stand. Email donation@katorfoundation.org and you will get a straight answer.
We do not post regular photo and video updates on the site. The safety of our students, teachers, and staff comes first, and the less we publish about who is there and when, the safer they are. Updates go to donors directly instead.
Kator Foundation is a U.S. registered nonprofit 501(c)(3), EIN 85-1654570. Contributions are tax-deductible.
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