Afghanistan

EMERGENCY AID AND CHILDREN'S EDUCATION

Context

Mission Enfance has been working in Afghanistan since 2005: five primary schools and two co-educational secondary schools have been built there; wells are being drilled in villages for victims of natural disasters; nutritional consultations are organised every day in our Kabul clinic by our paediatrician, Dr Belqis. Through his consultations with children, our doctor alerts us to the state of health of both the children and their parents.

"Over the past year, I have seen a terrible increase in misery and hunger among children and their families," she says. "The parents come to sleep and eat in the mosques. The next day, others take their place. Every day there are new families, every day there are new tragedies of hunger!"

The Kabul regime is obstructing humanitarian aid to the country. Many international organisations are leaving the country because of the security situation and the constraints imposed by the authorities. Yet 23 million people (half the country) suffer from malnutrition. Women no longer have the right to work, to speak in the street or to live in houses with windows opening onto the outside world. Young girls are deprived of schooling from puberty onwards. Young boys have recently been required to wear Islamic dress to school (black turbans and white Taliban clothing).

Thanks to its local team, Mission Enfance is undertaking an emergency food mission for families in Kabul. Distribution of food vouchers comprising 25 kg of rice, 50 kg of flour, 10 litres of oil, 7 kg of sugar, 1 kg of tea, 7 kg of kidney beans, 3.5 kg of lentils, 1 kg of powdered milk and 5 kg of pasta.

1 $100 food voucher = 1 month's survival for an Afghan family of 8

After signing, each family will receive its food voucher in person from our local team, in agreement with a supermarket with which we work during our emergency operations.

SEE VIDEO BELOW

Goal

RELIEVING THE DISTRESS OF AFGHAN CHILDREN AND THEIR MOTHERS
PROVIDING AN EDUCATION FOR GIRLS AND BOYS IN AFGHANISTAN

Dr Belqis, our pediatric correspondent in Kabul, treats 50 children and their mothers every day in her dispensary. Most of the malnourished children receive nutritional flours, and our pediatrician also distributes many asthma medicines (for lack of electricity and wood, the inhabitants of the cities burn tires and plastic, causing asphyxiating pollution). We continue to support Dr Belqis Katil's dispensary in Kabul. 

All schools (from primary to high school) in Afghanistan were transformed into madrasas (Koranic schools) in September 2023. Since then, most girls and young women have regained access to their education and can even sit their baccalaureate. The teaching has been modified, with an additional 6 hours of religious classes. The girls are hidden from their teacher behind a curtain. At our high school in Dan-e Rewat, girls who have passed their baccalaureate can take a 3-year course to become teachers themselves. For the time being, they have not regained the right to go to university. On the other hand, in our Mazar e Sharif secondary school, female students are still unable to get an education.

After the floods that devastated around twenty villages in Baghlan province, we are drilling wells to restore drinking water to the families we rescued in 2024.

Local partners: Haji Saleh, Local coordinator – Dr Belqis Kattil