The following report was prepared by ARO Volunteer Nadia Maiwandi, regarding projects she spearheaded during the Spring 2006 relief trip. 

Below are details of the projects funded entirely by private donors. Donations were collected from early April to mid-May 2006. The projects described below – home and business for a family, a free medical clinic, a tuition-free nursing school and plumbing school – were begun in May - June 2006 and are long-term, sustainable projects.

INTRODUCTION:
Together, we raised a total of $15,200 in only six weeks – a truly amazing achievement. Originally, the project was to house and obtain job skills or businesses for four to six families without proper shelter.

But, the Afghan government has promised every family living in ruins or tents their own land and has created a national registry for the land grants. The families were extremely eager for this government program, and they were unwilling to chance ours. They repeatedly told us that they were very much in need, but said that if they left their makeshift home for adequate shelter, they would not be eligible for the land grants and would never own property. Even though the government has done little, if anything, to come through with these grants, and the feasibility of placing hundreds of thousands of families is near impossible, it was a risk these families were not willing to take. One by one, they politely declined our program or failed to make their appointments. For that reason, we created three other programs to assist Afghanistan’s poor.Together with the help of Afghanistan Relief Organization (ARO) staff and a neighbor who is a community leader and advocate for the poor, Wakil Samat, we visited many displacement camps and ruined areas and met several dozen families. Our little team spent two weeks researching and visiting these areas to no avail, until Sharifa approached me. She and her family were the only ones we could find who were willing to be part of our program due to the government’s promises described above.

Sharifa, her husband, Mohammed Hussein, and their four children were not living in a tent, but had a small, dank one-room apartment (not one bedroom—one room only). There was a main room and a storage area, and nothing else—no bathroom, no kitchen. Cooking is done outside on an open fire in a shared courtyard, and the building’s residents all share an outhouse. Bathing is done at public bathhouses. Sharifa described her apartment as a place so bad that seeing it from the outside, “you won’t want to go in.”

But her concerns were not aesthetics, nor even space. Sharifa makes $60 a month at the Sewing Project, a sister project run from the ARO campus, and the family’s monthly rent was $50. Another family had been living with Sharifa and her family in the one room and had moved out, and Sharifa was desperate for a way to make ends meet now that she had to come up with all the rent.

Her husband, Mohammed Hussein, was mostly unemployed, and used a pushcart to sell produce when they had the money to rent the cart. He has a prosthetic leg, and all the walking he had to do make the job all the more difficult. The family’s apartment was about half a mile up a hill and that also contributed to his difficulties.

The house we rented for them was such a contrast to their own: three rooms with a lot of light, plus two bathrooms and a kitchen. They had so much space, in fact, that when we checked on them the day that they moved in, they didn’t know what to do with the third room! One room was for the parents, the second for the children (three girls and a boy, ages 17-22) and the third was empty at that point. They may rent it out to a small family as a way to generate more income. Rent for the house is $200 a month and we paid it for a year.

Since Mohammed Hussein was out of work, we bought him a business – a small market in a busy part of the Karte Say neighborhood of Kabul. We supplied him with several months’ worth of goods – $1,200 worth (which also bought the scale, shop display windows, refrigerator and other necessities) – and paid a six-months’ rent at $50 per month. He has many wholesale contacts and business know-how from his work selling produce. He was very pleased with the new shop, and he and his son set it up the same day the contract with the landlord was signed.

Literally, within only several blocks from each other are the new shop, all the kids’ schools and ARO, where Sharifa works. We were also able to help this family even more: Two of three of her girls are now enrolled in ARO’s nursing program – a program established exclusively with the funds we raised. In a year, they’ll graduate and will be able to provide very good incomes for their family in addition to Sharifa’s salary and the shop’s income. I’m hopeful that they’ll be able to make their $200 rent a year from now, when the year’s rent runs out.

Sharifa’s family was extremely happy with the help and gave many thanks and prayers to everyone who helped.

NURSING PROGRAM:
A certified nursing program was established with our project money. The students study for one year, five days a week, and then take a national exam and receive their nursing degrees when they pass. There was immediate interest in this program and it reached full capacity within days of its inception with 25 girls and women enrolled. The school is looking to rearrange the classroom schedule so that the nursing instruction can take place in a larger classroom accommodating 40 students.

Afghanistan Relief Organization runs a vocational school in Kabul for very poor students. Tuition and all services at ARO are free, and the new programs we set up follow the same guidelines. All the students in the nursing program were selected due to their financial need, their capabilities and their proven determination. There was also a prerequisite biology class.

The organization’s resident doctor, Dr. Maroof Shahab, who also runs the medical clinic, is the instructor for the nursing school. In July, the doctor found a displacement camp that was in extremely poor condition in Chaharzai, Kabul. A lot of the children had been suffering from diseases complicated by long-term malnutrition. Dr. Shahab examined the children at a local mosque and distributed medications.

Our donations paid for the doctor’s salary for two years, teaching texts and equipment, and medications.

MEDICAL CLINIC:
Also on the campus, a free medical clinic was established with our donor money. The doctor has daily office hours when any of ARO’s 1,150 students and their family members can drop by. The clinic also accepts people from the community who are in need of medical attention and don’t have the means to pay for services.  Medications and all services are free of charge.

We paid for the doctor’s salary for two years, construction of the clinic (a bedroom in the ARO house was converted to a clinic with new plastic flooring, enclosing a balcony for more space) new office furniture, and meds and supplies.

PLUMBING SCHOOL:
Lastly, a plumbing school was established with our project money. Sanitation and sewage has become a terrible problem in Kabul and much of Afghanistan due to nearly 30 years of war and extreme poverty. Raw sewage often runs through alleyways and streets. 

We established a plumbing program, and paid its fees for two years. The program meets at the ARO satellite campus five days a week. Currently, there are about 15 students enrolled.

Our collection money paid for the plumbing instructor’s fees for two years, minor construction to the building, and equipment.

Below is a breakdown of all expenditures:

CONCLUSION:
Total spent was $15,295 and with that, we were able to help one family with a year’s rent for a house, rent for a shop for six months, and shop supplies for several months; open a free clinic at Afghanistan Relief Organization (including some construction); and start tuition-free programs in nursing and pluming, both paid for two years.