Afghanistan
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. One in four children will die before they reach their fifth birthday.
Afghanistan emergency
War. No school. Illness, and a high likelihood that you’ll die before reaching your fifth birthday. That’s the outlook for the majority of children living in Afghanistan. We’ve been helping them since 1976. Support our appeal to reach more children
What we’re doing
Around 70% of the population live in poverty. More than half of all children under five (54%) are stunted due to poor nutrition. Life expectancy is just 44.
More than half of Afghanistan’s 27.1 million population are under 18 years of age. Two-thirds of the population live on less than US$2 a day, so many children have to work to support their families. Many do not have enough to eat, have no school to go to and cannot get treatment when they are ill. Children are often caught up in the fighting which continues in the south and east.
- We’re helping 25,298 children get a better education.
- We’re protecting 6,624 children from harm and abuse.
- We provided practical help to 16,030 children affected by floods and drought.
Save the Children in Afghanistan
We’ve worked in Afghanistan since 1976. Despite a difficult working environment, we expanded our programme considerably in 2008, reaching 238,843 children (compared with 57,293 in 2007). Our activities focus on getting more children into primary school and protecting children from harm. We’re starting to provide more and better healthcare for children and their carers in the rural areas. We work in Kabul city and its surrounding rural areas, Balkh, Sar-i-pul and Jawzjan in the north, and Kandahar and Uruzgan in the south.
We work in partnership with local community groups, the government, international NGOs and UN agencies.
We’re helping children get a good quality education
In 2001, just 1 million Afghan children went to primary school. Today 5 million do – but that still leaves 7 million who don’t, including some 60,000 working on the streets of Kabul and up to 92% of girls in some rural areas.
The standard of education is poor. There are shortages of qualified teachers and a lack of textbooks and equipment. Girls are discriminated against and there are not enough female teachers. The presence of mines in some areas makes it dangerous for children to go to school.
In 2008, through our Rewrite the Future programme, we provided a good quality education for 25,298 children. This includes 13,650 children who are going to school for the first time. Working with five local partners, we set up 455 accelerated learning programme centres to help children who’ve missed out on school catch up on their studies to the point where they can join mainstream schools. We also support 40 formal primary schools, providing textbooks, stationery and teachers’ kits.
We’re helpling children to catch up on their education
Our experience shows that using non-formal classes is an effective way to increase children’s enrolment in school. We’ve set up 13 drop-in centres to provide non-formal, basic schooling and basic healthcare to children not taking part in the state school system, including children who work or live on the streets. We provide them with textbooks, stationery, hygiene kits and other items. For many girls, these non-formal classes are a rare opportunity to learn basic literacy and arithmetic.
We also encourage these children to move into formal education where possible. We help many of them get official identification cards, making it easier to enrol in primary school. Often their parents are illiterate and unable to manage the complicated registration system.
Afghanistan’s civil war began in 1978. Fundamentalist Taliban control ended in 2001, but despite reconstruction efforts, Afghanistan is deeply poor, with chronic malnutrition, lawlessness and frequent violence against children. Girls are still excluded from many activities. Only half of all Afghan children between the ages of 7 and 13 attend school; only a third of that number are girls.
In rural areas girls’ attendance at school can be very low, due to inadequate school facilities for girls, the distances they must travel to attend school, the very limited number of female teachers and the lack of separate classrooms. Although there are no school fees, some families are too poor to invest in education and need their children to help support the household by working.
Rohela, 13, works in her family garden with her sister Sokhalia, who lost her eye due to a bomb explosion eight years ago. The sisters had attended a school, which was funded by Save the Children, but gave up last August due to strong opposition from their eldest brother.
The sisters now study twice a day at home in between doing the gardening and housework. The lack of female teachers and separate classes for girls has had a direct impact on girls like Rohela and Sokhalia.
We encourage communities to set up schools or centres for ‘equivalent’ education for groups of children, such as older working children, who are excluded from the government school system, and help to train more female teachers. This work could help girls like Rohela and Sokhalia to return to school.
We’re protecting children from harm
We work to raise awareness of children’s rights among teachers, communities and children themselves. We put pressure on the authorities to make sure children’s rights are respected.
We’ve helped set up children’s groups in schools and drop-in centres in Balkh, Jawzjan and Sar-i-pul. In 2008, these groups benefited some 6,624 children. The children discuss issues that affect them and express their views directly to the appropriate adults in the local community. We’ve also helped children to produce their own radio programmes talking about children’s rights, and the problems that affect their lives. These radio programmes have reached around half a million listeners.
We’re making children healthier
We’re helping malnourished children, especially those in rural areas, and children who are working or live on the streets. We’ve successfully completed a pilot project providing community-based therapeutic care, through funding from UNICEF, which helped save the lives of 359 severely malnourished children in Jawzjan province. We now plan to extend the project to all the districts in the province.
We’re training 244 health staff from hospitals and clinics in child health and nutrition screening, as well as follow-up systems to ensure that children at risk are referred for appropriate help. And we’re reaching more than 15,000 women in rural areas with advice on the best child feeding practices for newborn babies and children under five.
We’re helping children caught up in emergencies
Afghanistan is prone to natural and man-made disasters, such as floods, landslides, and outbreaks in disease; armed conflict has regularly led to large population displacements.
We supplied 16,030 children affected by heavy snows, flooding and drought with blankets, warm clothing, shoes, hygiene kits, and other items in 2008.
Find out more
- Watch this video we produced for the Guardian to see how we're battling malnutrition in the country.
- Read the full Afghanistan country brief (PDF 76KB).
- Find out about the state of education for girls in Afghanistan from 14 year old Fareima.
