The March newsletter is now online and it gives a tip-of-the-iceberg taste of some of the goings-on at the orphanages. A great, quick, informative read.

If you’re interested in getting others involved and wanting to show how exception and how crucial the AFCECO orphanages are, there’s no better place to start than the February 2010 edition of the newsletter. It provides a striking example of both the breadth of vision for the orphanages and the huge, day-to-day accomplishments achieved so far.

While our primary focus at Hope for Afghan Children is supporting Afghan-run efforts to improve the life of boys and girls, that work cannot take place in an age vacuum. There can’t be an arbitrary cut-off age when these young people are turned out to fend for themselves with no further support. This is especially true for young girls becoming young women, who will have to contend with a society in which their human rights have been ignored and who are at great risk if they try to pursue their own goals.

Everyone at AFCECO is fully aware of this and they are working to create a support structure that will help launch the older children into the wider world, giving them a chance not only to build their own lives but also to become leaders in their communities.

Because AFCECO is not alone in recognising the special challenges faced by women in Afghanistan, we’ve invited Barbara James to write about SAWA-Australia, a group devoted to providing hope for Afghan women.

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SAWA-Australia aims to give hope to the women of Afghanistan. It raises funds for RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) and other progressive support organizations to ensure the education and quality of life for the girls and women of Afghanistan, including those who live as refugees in Pakistan.

Operated entirely by volunteers, SAWA is incorporated in South Australia but has local groups right around Australia.

SAWA concentrates on two major projects:

1. Vocational Training Center for Women

The Vocational Training Center for Women in Kabul, operated by OPAWC (Organization for Promoting Women’s Capabilities) was established in February 2008. This was in response to SAWA committee members feeling the need to do something to help the war widows and illiterate women of Kabul. The project is designed to help a small number of widows to learn some basics skills in making handicrafts and then provide them with tools and materials to sell their product on the market. It empowers them with sufficient skills and support so that they can stand on their own feet.

The Center is staffed by three literacy teachers and one handicraft trainer and offers free adult literacy classes and handicraft training.

The subjects taught in the Center are: Dari (Farsi), Mathematics, Basic Information on Child Care, and General Knowledge. The literacy program is of two years, comprised of four semesters of six months each. An exam is conducted at the end of each semester which students have to pass to proceed to the next semester. After finishing the 4th semester the students appear for the final examination and if they pass that exam they get the Merit Certificate of Literacy.

Handicraft courses run for 3 months, after which time the participants can establish the economic base to support a family. The centre has the capacity to accommodate 90 literacy students and 10 handicraft trainees. On an annual basis this corresponds to 45 literacy students and 40 handicraft trainees.

The Centre offers handicraft training for women who successfully completed the literacy course. The first handicraft class began in 2009 with women from the 2008 literacy classes. The women produce traditional Afghan dresses for festive occasions, beautiful beadwork  and support their families through their own work.

SAWA supports about 75% of the costs of the centre by funding the salaries of the teachers, the handicraft trainer, the housekeeper and the security watchman, the rent, electricity and gas for the building and some textbooks and other material. SAWA aims at increasing its support for the center to 100% through the raising of increased revenue.

As Suraya, the mother of 4 children says, “I went through the world blind before participating in this course.” You can read more stories like Suraya’s here.

2. Hewad High School

Hewad High School is located in Rawalpindi, a city in Pakistan with a high Afghan refugee population. It is a primary and secondary school for Afghan girls and boys and covers years 1 to 12. Hewad is Pashto for Fatherland.

Hewad High School is one of eight RAWA schools that were established in Rawalpindi when RAWA received large support from the international community after the 11th of September attack on the World Trade Centre towers. This support faded quickly, and most schools had to be closed again within two years. Hewad High School is now the only RAWA school still operating in Rawalpindi.

The school has 288 students, 148 boys and 140 girls. Classes are conducted in two shifts a day, morning and afternoon. SAWA has also funded a computer course in the summer holidays allowing many students the opportunity to learn basic computer skills.

Every year, Hewad High School graduates a number of students, who by finishing class twelve are provided with the Baccalaureate Certificate validated by the Afghan Embassy, based on which students can apply for the entry test in any university of Afghanistan. While Afghan universities hardly can accept more than 50% of those who apply for entry, the success of graduates from Hewad High School is over 85%, clear testimony for the high standard of the school’s education, which enables the students to easily pass the hard entry test.

Unlike in other Afghan schools, in Hewad High School boys and girls attend the same classes. The main motivation behind co-education is to develop respect for each other and raise a new generation based on the firm values of equality, democracy and mutual respect devoid of discrimination and oppression.

Jameela, the 23 year old student of tenth grade describes her love for education that has motivated her to sit in a class of 17-18 year olds. “I want to become someone in the future. I want to get educated so that I can do something for myself and my country.”

SAWA shares the support of Hewad High School with the Friends of RAWA (Japan).

I invite anyone interested in finding out more about SAWA to become a member, to visit our website or join us on facebook .

Barbara James

Secretary SAWA

PO Box 90 Flinders University Post Office

Bedford Park SA 5042 Australia

The response has been universally positive. Everyone, from 8-year-olds to octogenarians, is eager to learn more about Afghanistan and to hear that not all is doom and gloom for the country and its people.

You’ll find an updated speaking schedule for Ian here on the site. If he’s going to be coming to a town near you, don’t miss this chance to hear him speak. And if your area is not on the speaking schedule, how about approaching a school, college, service organization or other group and organizing a visit by Ian. You’ll find all the details on this page.

We’re hoping this segment will encourage more people to sponsor children and support AFCECO’s exceptional work.

This is welcome news to all of us who followed along as he wrote while in Afghanistan. This is not your average blog. Ian is a writer and a thinker, and his journal gave all of us plenty to chew on as well as glimpses of the heartache, beauty and hope in which he was immersed.

I encourage you to check Ian’s journal for updates each weekend. You’ll find plenty to inspire you and to spark ideas about new ways to help the children.

- Rose

We’ll also be using Twitter to follow other organizations providing information about Afghanistan or doing good work for Afghan people, such as Vets for Afghanistan (vets4afstan).

If you’re not familiar with using Twitter or not sure how to make it useful for you, one of the best ways to improve the signal-to-noise ratio is to use Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck is a program which lets you follow different conversation streams on Twitter with ease. Using Tweetdeck, it’s easy, for example, to focus on Afghan issues and tune out other stuff.

To use Tweetdeck:

1. Create a Twitter account if you don’t already have one.
2. Download and install Tweetdeck. It requires Adobe Air to run, which will be installed automatically.
3. Launch Tweetdeck, go through the setup procedure, and then click the Twitter Search icon (the magnifying glass) near the top left.
4. Type a search phrase such as afghan OR afghanistan and press Enter. Or you might try #afghan OR afghankids OR afceco. Note that many people use the #afghan tag to mark tweets that pertain to Afghanistan. Using “OR” in your search phrases expands the scope of your search. So, for example a search for afghankids afceco will find only those tweets that refer to both afghankids and afceco; a search for afghankids OR afceco finds tweets that refer to either afghankids or to afceco or to both.
5. Tweetdeck will display a new column displaying tweets that match your search phrase. Now you can easily track tweets that are relevant.

If you’d prefer to handpick a specific group of twitterers to focus on, use Tweetdeck’s Group search (it’s the icon displaying two people). You’ll see a list of all the people you’re following on Twitter and you can select those you’d like to focus on.

This is a great result, and I think we can do further Gadget Drives once we publicise this site widely and have more people involved.

One thing I’ve noticed about the Gadget Drive is there’s no instant gratification. It takes about 10 days from when you send in your donations until they are processed, a value assigned and the money shows up on the Gadget Drive page. It’s a pity, because having a responsive fundraising thermometer encourages others to contribute. I’ll be giving feedback to Gazelle (the company that runs the Gadget Drives) about this.

We plan to create our own donation widgets, which will let us set up special fundraisers, each with its own “thermometer”. That will give us a lot of fundraising flexibility in the future.

I’ve redone or updated most of the content, with the exception of the section on the street children of Kabul, which features Jamshid’s photos. That will come soon. We’re also waiting for CharityHelp’s programmer to create our specialised donation widget. Once it’s ready, we’ll be able to set up special fundraisers and provide a donate button on our site or any other site that wants to get involved, such as Vets for Afghanistan. Each donation button will feature a fundraising thermometer, so we’ll be to see how we’re progressing towards each goal.

At this stage, I want to encourage our small band of Facebook activists to register for the forums (thanks to Kristen for getting in early on this), contribute to the discussion, and put a hands up if you have anything to contribute to this blog. Blog items can be short – a few paragraphs – or moderately lengthy. Or they might simply be photos with captions. Topics can include background info about Afghanistan or reports of trips/experiences there; our orphanages; sponsoring; fundraising. Anything that furthers our goals of supporting AFCECO; making life better for all Afghans, especially the children; and building a useful network for sponsors.

Once we have a core group here, then it’ll be time to really launch the site. Stephanie from CharityHelp has offered to help us with this, and I’m gathering a list of Afghan-related sites we can contact. We’ll also want to tweet and Facebook about it. If you have any suggestions for publicising the launch, please let me know. You can either respond to this post or post in the discussion groups.

I’m very keen to make this an international site, so let’s do what we can to encourage non-US sponsors to get involved.

Rose

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

The front page is fully functional, so at least you can donate to our spotlight fundraising cause or sponsor a child. The discussion forums should be back up some time next week, and the rest of the content will follow within a fortnight (that’s two weeks, to those of you not fluent in British Commonwealth English).

Unfortunately, the glitch means that any of you who registered for the forums will probably need to register again. I think you’ll also need to resubscribe to the blog if you did so earlier.

I’ll give you a heads up when things are back in shape.

Rose