I just spent more than a month in Afghanistan, from October 15 to November 25. Since my previous trip in May 2021, things have changed a lot... the Taliban are well in place and women are once again greatly victims of their harsh regime. I feared for my safety throughout the stay and I had to work discreetly to not endanger our beneficiaries as well as my team who works with courage and generosity. Armed Taliban are posted everywhere in the streets and the population is under permanent surveillance.
From this trip, however, I bring back a lot of positives: the families we have supported so far are doing well, some have even become financially independent and were able to leave the association’s aid program! Thanks to this, we were able to absorb some new families. We also received a donation from the organization Uplift Afghanistan, which we allocated to a specific program: providing mobile and fixed stands to several families so that they can generate income by selling food or other items in bazaars (photo). This has always been a key priority for Hope for Afghan Women: enabling our beneficiaries to become financially independent and gradually move away from dependence on men, by achieving a respectable and decent life for themselves and their children.
Thanks to our small community of donors, things are changing and our beneficiaries are extremely grateful. We hope to be able to continue our actions on the ground and for this, we are looking for new sources of income. We need funds for food distributions, which will be necessary with this announced icy winter. Several families have no food to feed their children or heat themselves.
In this photo, we see one of the 30 mobile stands that we had made for several beneficiary families. These people who do not have enough to cover their immediate needs receive food aid from us, in order to focus on something other than their survival. Then, thanks to our empowerment programs, they can start a lucrative activity and sustainably escape poverty.
Rohina SAMIM, founder of the association
