Improving Survival & Well-being of Afghan Boys and Girls

In a back Alley of Herat, not too far from the hospital there's a large old three storey house with a very high wall topped with razor wire, and a number of other security measures. This, for the last ten years, has been the headquarters for a staff of about 70 people doing their best to "improve survival and well-being of Afghan boys and girls by building foundations for a better future for Afghan children and their communities".

Part of my role here is to monitor projects funded through the Australian Government's, Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP). This portfolio is relatively small, but in this country and amongst the Afghan people these interventions can literally be the difference between life and death, or surviving and living well. We work in the areas of livelihoods, health (in particular STI, HIV/AIDS), education and child survival.

So, in the next few days I will be meeting with the staff that manage four programs in particular. These are:

1. Herat WASH: a Water, Sanitation and Health project that aims to improve the health status of children between 0-5 years through training in sanitation and health practices, water sources rehabilitation and latrine construction
2. Street Children Centre: a Child Protection, Child Rescue project that has established a safe place for (street) working children to be accepted and loved! Over three years, three sessions of 100 children will receive basic education that will prepare them for mainstream schooling as well as provide psychological counselling, health checks and education and life skills. At the same time caregivers will receive "parenting" training and vocational training to help raise their income.
3. Badghis Sustainable Livelihoods: a food security and livelihoods project that hopes to recover and stabilise rural livelihoods in Badghis where people are impacted by prolonged drought. Using a human capacity building (HCD) method of empowerment and mapping we aim to create certainty in water supply for survival during inevitable drought and natural disaster.
4. Beekeeping in Badghis: a women's empowerment and livelihoods project that aims to engage women in sustainable, culturally acceptable, income generation. Building on the success of a previous project Beekeeping will broaden it's focus to engage the whole family in this viable business with the hope of improving the self-determination of women and improving the economy of the family and community.

Other exciting projects in Afghanistan include a project that is changing the lives of people with HIV/AIDS, and their children; an education project that aims to train youth (15-25), young women to be teachers, and young men in relevant vocations; and Establishing Early Childhood Space (ECCD) that provides a safe place for pre-schoolers to receive basic education and health care.

There are some exciting things happening here in Afghanistan: in a very fragile and disadvantaged context children's lives are being transformed; drug users are being detoxed, educated and offered viable options; women are having their dignity restored, or built, they are being empowered and educated; and families are finding ways to safeguard their water source and establish systems for disaster risk reduction (DRR).

In the next few days I have the privilege of listening to people tell me their stories: whether they are staff telling me why they work in this field, or beneficiaries telling me how good, or bad, the project is - for a little while I get to see (even in such a shallow way) into another world, and another life.