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Afghanistan:
Projects still running
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The
winter is fast approaching and the Afghan winter is known
to be quite severe. If relief aid does not reach the
concerned areas before the winter sets in, the world would
be faced with a massive human tragedy. Many of the roads
would be snow-bound and it would not be possible to
deliver aid to areas particularly situated in mountainous
regions.
Terre des hommes (Tdh)
position remains the same: To stop the bombing to give a
chance to the relief agencies to provide the much-needed
aid to the starving and increasingly shelter-less Afghans.
The underlying idea is to do something for poor Afghans
who may have nothing to do with the ongoing political
games but being citizens of the target country they have
to endure whatever is happening in their country.
After the evacuation of the expatriate in Kabul, Terre
des hommes (Tdh) has succeeded in maintaining all its
programs in Afghanistan thanks to the determined efforts
and the profound implication of our local staff. Presently
42 female professionals and 58 male professionals are
working in Kabul in our projects and programs. In Rustaq,
northern Afghanistan, 63 professionals are working, the
majority of them female professionals. 140 volunteers are
stand-by to start mass immunization campaigns for children
in Rustaq district.
The main asset we have in the country is our Afghan male
and female staff. In Kabul as well as in Rustaq, our
fabulous Afghan colleagues have managed to keep assistance
to their people going. There are no Tdh programs that have
been suspended since September 11. It pays off that we
have invested much in our Afghan staff. Overall, the
country has suffered a brain drain, but we have retained
some very skilled people who otherwise would have fled the
country as well. And we have consistently invested in
training.
Terre des hommes (Tdh) is committed to strengthening
its operational capacity inside Afghanistan to better
respond to the worsening situation, especially for
children. We already managed to send two convoys to
Afghanistan, one to the north and one truckload with
medicines to Kabul including health kits for the De-mining
Agency.
All photos in this newsletter were taken by our Afghan
colleagues in different projects in Kabul during the last
week of October. They were smuggled out of Kabul and
brought to Peshawar.
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The
mental health crisis in Afghanistan
“Twenty-three years of war have
ravaged the mental health and psychosocial functioning of the
people in Afghanistan. Killing, executions, massive persecution,
forced internal displacement, fear associated with living in mined
areas, and the latest escalation of violence have left an
indelible mark on the population. In addition, the psychological
impact of living in uncertainty affects at least three million
Afghan refugees.
Not only does Afghanistan hold the unenviable position of one of
the worst health care situations in the world, it is also
grappling with a hidden medical crisis: severe mental suffering
resulting from decades of conflict and repression.
Women, in particular, have seen a dramatic deterioration in
their psychological, family and social life over the past decade.
Excluded from education, and employment, they have enormous
difficulties accessing health care
while still having to care for other family members. Widows,
pregnant women, and survivors of sexual violence are particularly
vulnerable. In Kabul alone, an estimated 60,000 widows are forced
to subsist without traditional family support. Many suffer the
humiliation of having to beg, yet are punished for roaming the
streets without male accompaniment. The grave vulnerability of
children in Afghanistan was revealed in 1997 through a survey
carried out by UNICEF. Three hundred children in Kabul were
interviewed: the results indicated that 40% had lost a parent;
2/3rds of them had seen dead bodies or parts of bodies and 90%
believed they would die during the conflict.” (WHO – Central
Asian Crisis Unit, 06.11.01)
The
Aschiana Centers in Kabul
All
six drop-in centers for street-working children in Kabul are still
open and boys and girls are frequently visiting them for
recreation, protection, food, health care, non-formal education
and playing.
The
main reason that children are working is poverty, with their work
necessary to supplement whatever other income the family may have.
Widow-headed households or those with no able-bodied male are
particularly vulnerable and often require children to work.
Restrictions introduced by Taliban on women’s employment are
believed to have significantly increased the number of working
children in Kabul in particular. Child work has become an
important coping mechanism as a result of poverty and conflict
during the last decade, with new and more hazardous types of work
taken up by increasing numbers of children.
An
estimated 400,000 Afghans have been killed or wounded by landmines
with 10 to 12 casualties each day. It is believed that almost 50%
of landmine victims die due to lack of medical facilities in the
early stages of their injuries. An estimated 34% of all casualties
involve children under the age of 18 years, the majority of whom
were herding, gathering or tending to agriculture at the time.
Also
especially susceptible are the growing numbers of children
gathering scrap metal for sale in neighbouring Pakistan.
By 1997 in Kabul, 55% of landmine victims and 85% of all
UXO victims were children, the majority of them boys who had been
injured whilst playing, collecting metal or firewood, or tending
animals.
Home
schools: Secret learning for girls
Terre
des hommes (Tdh)
projects and programs are presently supporting several home schools
in Kabul and providing education to 230 girls and employment to more
than 10 female teachers.
Sources
have said that over 45,000 girls under 10 year of age are engaged
in secret learning up to primary level, in Afghanistan.
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The
advent of Taliban, with strict policies restricting use of materials
with images and on women working, has dealt a blow to health
education initiatives that depend on visual aids for children in
particular. With limitations on education for girls as well as for
boys, the informal home-based health education groups have become a
substitute offering the possibility to socialize and learn
information that is less accessible through other sources.
Presently
more than 500.000 people are indirectly benefiting from Terre des
hommes (Tdh)’ assistance in Afghanistan, assistance which is
focusing on children and their mothers.
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Agencies
call on U.S. to end food drops
Humanitarian
workers are being put in danger by the American policy of
air-dropping food into Afghanistan, field workers for Oxfam,
the
International Red Cross and Doctors Without
Borders said yesterday.
"Our staff are in danger. If one side of the
conflict perceives that the other is using humanitarian aid
as a weapon of war, we could be perceived as the enemy and
therefore our staff could be targeted," said Mark
Fried, communications and advocacy co-ordinator for Oxfam
Canada. "We're quite concerned that this blurring of
the line between humanitarian and military is dangerous to
our staff on the ground and ultimately dangerous to the
whole effort of providing humanitarian relief."
Meanwhile, Lai Ling Lee, program director for Doctors
Without Borders, bluntly called on the Americans to stop the
food drops. In an attempt to show that its bombing campaign
is aimed at terrorists, not at Afghani civilians, the United
States has dropped more than 700,000 packages of
single-serving food rations that include vegetarian entrees
and rice-based nutrition bars.
But
Mr. Fried said the rations are reaching only one per cent of
the people in need. He characterized the price of the
rations as "obscene," saying that it cost $27
million to distribute 130,000 meals by air -- about $207 per
meal --while Oxfam could distribute roughly the same amount
of food by land for less than 3.5 cents a meal.
Attempts
by aid groups to distribute food by land have almost ceased
in Afghanistan, as the U.S. refuses to pause its bombing and
the Taliban refuses to provide protection to aid workers
threatened by thieves, looters and pillaging soldiers. Seven
million people are said to be at risk of starvation inside
Afghanistan. The
Ottawa Citizen
October 26, 2001 Friday.
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Winter
Relief Program for Children
On 5th
of November Terre des hommes (Tdh) and the partner
organization Aschiana began with a so-called “winter relief
project for children” in Kabul, aimed at providing
additional food and blankets to suffering children from the
streets of the city.
It is planned to expand and extend the program in Kabul as
well as to Rustaq and Peshawar in Pakistan. |
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Second
aid convoy goes into Afghanistan
On 6th of November a shipment of medicines for the Terre
des hommes’ (Tdh) Mother-and-Child Health Program in
Kabul crossed into Afghanistan – using the old and famous
smuggling routes of southeastern Afghanistan.
Around
560 parcels with a volume of more than 24 cubic meters were
loaded on 4-whell drive vehicles, transported to the border
and reloaded on donkeys. After crossing the mountains the
medicines will be reloaded again on different vehicles and
transported to Kabul.
In
addition Terre des hommes (Tdh) also assisted the
De-mining Agency MDC by taking their first-aid-kits to Kabul
as well.
The
medicines will be used by our program as well as distributed
to different maternal health centers in Kabul, which are
running out of stock. |
The
Mother-Child-Health Program
Due
to bombardments and security problems in Kabul for female staff the
home-visiting program has been suspended for four days only.
Despite the
deteriorating situation in Kabul, the Tdh midwives managed to survey
in September 590 new houses, and revisited 1.918 families. All in
all 5279 women attended also the health education sessions in homes
of clients. The midwives also assisted in home-delivery of 259
babies.
Afghanistan
has some of the worst social indicators in the world. Around 45
women die each day of pregnancy-related causes due to lack of
appropriate medical care.
Rustaq,
northern Afghanistan
The
Post-Earthquake Rehabilitation Project in Rustaq is full-scale
running, covering education, water & sanitation and health.
After the successful return of our senior staff – crossing the
Hindukush by donkeys during the first week of November –
preparations are underway to launch the fifth round of polio
eradication programs in Rustaq district.
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A
small child – severely malnourished – brought to Tdh
clinic in Rustaq. Presently 84 babies and small children are
included in the Tdh Rustaq nutrition program. Such children
could be found in Afghanistan even before the 11th
of September due to combination of chronic malnutrition, a
high incidence of measles and low vaccination coverage, which
leads to a high fatality rate among children. All the
malnourished children – brought to the clinic this year –
survived and improved. This reflects also a very positive
attitude change of
mothers who begin to trust reliable health services.
Photo taken by our health staff in July 2001.
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In
Education the Rustaq team managed to complete the fourth
school building in Baghi-Hisar with 8 classrooms. In order to
reduce the construction costs and to provide the starving
villagers with food, World Food Program (WFP) has supported
the project with 15 metric tons of wheat. Several hundred
daily laborers could therefore be employed.
Over the past two months the number of pupils in all 11
schools has further increased from 1,963 children to 2,098
(1,346 boys and 752 girls).
Agreements will be made with UNICEF to carry out teachers
training for all teaching staff of the project. 110 teachers
will participate from January to February and UNICEF will
provide the required trainers. Modern methodologies like
“Basic Competency Learning” will be used to train the
teachers for the first time in life.
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For
more information about the projects and programs of Terre
des hommes (Tdh) in Afghanistan don’t hesitate to look
at our newly established website:
www.tdhafghanistan.org.
This
website is daily updated with a summary of political news
from Afghanistan, reports, a whole lot of photos from
Afghanistan and progress reports – including daily updates
about the humanitarian situation. |
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