The winter cold will soon be coming to Afghanistan. To a lot of schoolchildren, temperatures below 10 degrees means daily discomfort and the risk of getting seriously ill. They have to sit on the cold floor for several hours during classes.
Both Sohaila Khan, 25, and Maa Begum, 50, lived in extreme poverty in northern Afghanistan. It was a constant struggle to feed themselves and their children. "There was no light at the end of the tunnel," says Sohaila.
Until July 2006.
"We didn't even have a small piece of land where we could grow food for ourselves," says Maa Begum (bottom picture). For years her eldest son tried in vain to provide for nine family members with a monthly income of merely 54 dollars. He was the only one who was lucky enough to be able to find a job.
Afghanistan has dropped one place in a UN study that ranks the population’s development in 178 countries worldwide. "Human Development Index" is based on values like income, life expectancy and literacy.
The report was released on November 18th and shows that only four other countries (all of them located in Africa) ranks lower than Afghanistan. This makes Afghanistan the fifth least developed country in the world and the poorest in all of Asia.
On October 3rd, Mission East, our local partner organisation Nur and the community of Metsamor in western Armenia held the opening of the area’s first children’s clubroom. The purpose of the clubroom is to provide an environment where disabled and non-disabled children in the community can meet, get to know each other, play together, and enjoy common interest activities together.
From emergency food aid to long-term development. In the autumn 2007 Mission East had been in Tajikistan for ten years.
September 2007
"When we got off the plane our luggage was already on the runway. The plane closed the doors behind us and took off right away without any new passengers. There was no passport control. No customs officers."
Two of the leaders of the disability movement in Denmark recently visited Mission East in Armenia. The visit is part of Mission East’s project "A Healthy Start" with the objective to give voice to the disabled in Armenia who suffer from a high degree of stigma and rarely receive the care they need.
