Fall 2020
A Word from Our Director Dear Friends, In this most difficult year of struggle, fear, frustration and heartache, I wish everyone health and comfort and better days ahead. Just as the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in all our lives and across the globe, it has been devastating to the lives of women in Afghanistan. The Afghan Women's Fund has also been hard hit, severely compromising our ability to continue our much-needed work. Going into 2021, I am asking for your help. The effect of the pandemic has been huge across Afghanistan. In the cities, the many small merchants and day laborers have been hit hardest. In the villages, the ongoing lack of adequate health care has exacerbated the pandemic’s toll. Between the two, farmers who used to share shipping costs to get their goods to city distributers and regional markets now much each bear these costs separately due to COVID regulations. In the article below I explain why AWF has decided to focus on assisting the women and families of Achin District in Nangarhar province in 2021. This is followed by brief updates on preserving our pipeline of school supplies necessary for girls and women to access education in various parts of the country. Please be in touch and extend your hearts and your help however you can, Fahima
2021 Focus: Achin Girls’ Education In 2019, shortly after opening literacy and vocational classes for girls and women in Paktia province, we were also able to do so in nearby Achin, a district in eastern Nangarhar province. This was particularly significant due to that area’s recent history. In April 2017, the United States dropped a massive “mother of all bombs” on Achin —the largest nonnuclear bomb ever used by the US in conflict (see news article links on last page) Even before this, the district was staggering under the impact of four decades of war, struggling to stabilize and rebuild. The bomb had devastating effects across the already compromised area. An unknown number of people were killed and buildings and other infrastructure were destroyed. As you might recall from our previous reports, when that bomb exploded, our local Afghan Women’s Fund team and I were in a neighboring town, working on a peace conference and starting classes for women and girls in a nearby area called Khewa. Later in 2017, when Achin villagers saw the success of Khewa women, they reached out and asked us to help them develop women’s education as well. After sending a local team to meet with
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their leaders and assess the situation, and seeing the enthusiasm of the villagers, we agreed.
lies and be better informed, and of the many young girls following in their footsteps (see their letter in the blue box). We are especially proud of the courageous and dedicated female teachers who travel over an hour each way by bus and other means to teach the girls and women. Achin is an espeOur supporters in Afghanistan, U.S., and elsewhere can cially challenging also feel proud — they have made it possible for these location for our women to put bread on their children's plates and earn work. The area money with dignity, and these girls to learn for the future. has long been controlled by However, financial support to sustain and expand the religious funda- Achin programs has been difficult. Just as the cumulative mentalists. It is numbers of now literate women and educated girls were close to Pakistan, and terrorist groups trained there have been crossing back and forth across the border easily for Achin Students in class many years. Consequently, there have been few developunder an arbor for shade ment projects in this region and we must tread carefully. In the winter of 2018, after government efforts to improve security in the area, we (AWF and local village leaders) decided it was safe enough to start literacy classes for women and a learning center (school) for girls. By April 2020, initial women’s education cohorts were completed, with eighty women graduated from literacy and vocational training courses. The girls’ school was vibrant and full. having a community impact, the coronavirus pandemic This was the first time hit. Due to the resulting restrictions, disruptions, fears, in many decades that and an even more severe lack of funds, we have so far not any formal education been able to open any additional women’s literacy or vowas available in Achin. cational training classes in the Achin since it began. We are proud of the Fortunately, the Achin Girls’ School continues to operate, brave women who with over two hundred girls engaged in education despite graduated and are now the pandemic. However, the school is struggling and has using their literacy to asked us for help constructing a school building. The need help support their famiis clear: First, the Achin Girls’ School operates out of a small, inadequate, rented house, with many classes held Achin Students’ Letter to AWF & its Supporters, Oct 2020 outdoors. Students endure brutally cold winter weather The letter pictured above arrived a few weeks ago. It reads: and baking summer temperatures (over 120° F) in the We Achin girls have dreamed of education for a long time; sun, while trying to focus on their schoolwork. getting education was our hope and wish. Luckily our dream and hope came true with the help of AWF . We are indebted to their help and support. Now we want to continue the rest of our education in a better environment. We hope for you to build classes for us [so] that we won't be deprived of the blessing of education anymore. With Respect, — It is signed by the thumb print and written names of more than 30 now-literate young girls in Achin.
Second, fearing additional unrest and terrorist attacks, many families feel they cannot allow their daughters to attend school without a building within which they are safe and securely surrounded by walls. Even so, over five hundred girls are on Achin’s waiting list but there is simply nowhere to hold more classes. So while we can help by providing school supplies and books and paying teachers’
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Achin Class held outside on the porch of a private home
To meet this goal we need donations of all sizes, introductions to possible donors, assistance with grant prospects, and volunteer hours — to make the tremendous potential of these girls, women, and villages a reality. If you are able to help, you will better not only to the lives of these students, but also their children, communities, and society at large. Together, we can facilitate their dreams!
salaries, the building is a larger need that we have so far been unable to fill.
Other 2020 Updates
Given the area’s recent history and the great local enthusiasm for girls’ education, Achin merits special attention. Please help us achieve the goal of building a modest school where Achin girls can study under more favorable conditions and gain the skills to support themselves and their families. The building we have in mind uses the approved national Department of Education plans with 8-10 classrooms, and will cost between $80,000 and $100,000. We will need to raise another $20,000 for the furniture and equipment. At great personal sacrifice, villagers have donated the land, often the only hard asset a family has, showing their commitment to the project. But we cannot proceed without construction funds.
The global pandemic and ongoing political strife in the U.S. and in Afghanistan have permitted us to accomplish only a fraction of our usual and planned work. Even that has been a tremendous struggle.
In 2020 we were able to support women’s literacy classes and vocational training in various areas so current students were able to complete their programs, but we have not been able to open many new classes nor enroll new cohorts We also worked hard to provide school supplies for thousands of girls and school uniforms for hundreds of students. Without our help these families would have not been able to afford their education under normal circumAs with other schools that AWF has helped to build, the stances, and with the pandemic and all its impacts their Achin School will benefit the entire community. Construcsituations were even harder. Across the locations below tion will use local labor, helping to employ people in the we were able to provide supplies for > 5,000 students. area. And, the building will serve many purposes. During the day, the students will use it for two or three shifts of LOGAR PROVINCE classes. In the evening, it will host adult literacy classes, Our three schools in Logar, (Malalai, Sher Mohammad vocational training, computer training, and meetings of Khan and Mir Taqi Shah in Mussavi) closed for less than a community elders and councils. The well associated with month due to the pandemic. Then they were able to rethe school will provide clean drinking water for the entire sume normal operations, including computer classes. We neighborhood. In some schools, solar power is being have been able to provide every student with school supused to plies for the year. An AWF volunteer from Wardak talking provide with boys and women in Achin electricity MAMAJANAK & MIR BACHA KOT DISTRICT to an Our numerous schools in Mamajanak and in the Mir entire Bacha Kot District north of Kabul continue to educate neighbor- hundreds of girls. AWF was able to again donate school hood. We supplies for girls from destitute families. hope Achin PAKTIA PROVINCE School will Our women’s literacy classes and vocational trainings eventually graduated in April, 2020. Some immediately started to do so as work and earn decent living wages for the first time in well. their lives.
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AWF is 100% volunteer organization committed to helping the people, especially women and girls, of Afghanistan forge a better future. This is a huge task and is not possible without your support, for which we are so grateful. Thank you for your help and trust these many years, and into the future. COURAGE COMPASSION CHANGE Courage to create a new and peaceful society. Compassion for the women, children and all those who suffer in these times. Change through education, healthcare and sustainable employment.
Women in Paktia pick up school supplies for distribution
Achin MOAB news articles: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-drops-themother-of-all-bombs-on-afghanistan https://www.globalresearch.ca/mother-of-all-bombs-the-dark-sides-ofafghanistans-moab-tragedy-is-unfolding/5602383
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AWF c/o Fahima Gaheez 1321 Maple Avenue Verona PA 15147