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The Government of Pakistan has recently ordered the closure of a few
Afghan refugee camps in an attempt to force the Afghans to move back to
their country. For a majority of these Afghans this was a nightmare
moment because they could imagine the difficult situations that would
confront them when returning to Afghanistan.
Where to live in Afghanistan when you have no land and money to build a
house and the Afghan Government is too weak to help you in this regard?
How to find a job there where the unemployment rate is over 60%? How to
feed your children with the exorbitant rates where the price of 1 liter
of liquid cooking gas is $1.5 and the prices of other commodities are
sky-high? How to guarantee the safety of there be a school where your
children may study?
The answers to these questions are here:
According the latest report by Afghan government,
over 60% of the population live under poverty line, the daily income of
most of the people is $1.00; 50% of the population don’t have access to
drinking water and there are many such heart-wrenching statistics that
make life worse for the refugees coming back to their country.
IRC, September 13, 2007: "Afghanistan is sliding ever further
into conflict with more than half of the country affected and several
regions out of reach of humanitarian aid."
Afghanistan Education Ministry, September 8, 2007: "Taliban
unrest shuts nearly 400 schools in Afghanistan; the closures meant that
around 200,000 school children would not be able to attend classes in
four provinces."
BBC News, November 27, 2006: "More than half of Afghanistan's
children are not going to school because of a shortage of places and
teachers, the aid agency Oxfam says. Girls in particular are losing
out, with just one in five girls in primary education and one in 20
going to secondary school."
Los Angeles Times, Sep.13, 2007: As written by Richard Klein, a
former State Department official, "in reality, Afghanistan feels more
and more like Sept. 10, 2001, than a victory in the US war on
terrorism."
Khewa Camp was one of the refugee camps in Pakistan where RAWA
had a substantial presence for over 20 years. This camp later changed
to a well-known education and culture centre
for Afghan intellectuals. Poets, writers, politicians, artists,
doctors, and others settled in this camp to work closely with RAWA.
Over 1000 youths were getting an excellent education in this camp. Big sports tournaments at the national level, festivals,
functions, theatres and music concerts were held in this camp where
thousands of visitors used to come from remote refugee camps.
An Italian supporter of RAWA who visited the camp number of times over
the past years calls it "One of the most important social experiments
in the world. A factory of democracy and free thoughts."
RAWA appeals to its supporters around the world to
help the families of the Khewa camp to have a safe return to their
country. The most urgent needs for them are to provide them with tent,
some basic supplies like blankets, warm clothes, firewood and digging
well for water. UNHCR gives $100 per person for the transportation and
some others costs but this is too little to meet their very basic
urgent needs.
The table bellows shows some of the needs which we expect to raise enough fund for them:
| Emergency Aids to Afghan Refugees Returning Home | | Expenses | # of families | Unit Cost | Total Cost | | Tent for shelter | 300 | $195 | $58,500 | | Digging water well (with pump) | 20 | $2,150 | $43,000 | | Basic needs for settlement | 300 | $180 | $54,000 | | Firewood for winter | 300 | $130 | $39,000 | | Grand Total | $194,500 |
You can send your donation to RAWA by any one of the following methods of payment:
For Online Credit Card Donations: http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/help_us/donate.php and make your payment at EMERGENCY RELIEF section.
Please make check or money order payable to IHC/Afghan Women's Mission and mail it to:
The Afghan Women's Mission
2460 North Lake Ave. PMB 207
Altadena, CA 91001
USA
Bank wire transfers: To do a wire transfer to the Afghan Women's
Mission, please call AWM's office at (626) 676-7884 to make
arrangements.
Or sponsor the children who have been in RAWA schools at Khewa camp. You can do through http://www.chairtyhelp.org/rawa
Thank you in advance for your support.
RAWA
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And now Khewa camp is on the brink of closure and hundreds of families
look to RAWA for help. Most of the families belong to provinces that
border with Pakistan, which are believed to be among the most insecure
regions in Afghanistan and many of them have no schools at all.
 
A newly established refugee camp 60 km away from Kabul city where
hundreds of families live in hell like conditions. These are Afghans
expelled from Pakistan and Iran 6 months ago and still have no access
to clean water and live on only bread. As the winter approaches, fear
of a human catastrophe comes in at the door of every one of these poor
residents.
Rafi 2, Farzana 3, Parvana 4, Sharifa 8, Zafar 10, Shakila 13 and Qadir
Khan 14 live together with their parents in this worn-out tent. The
father is a blind man and the mother is sick but they have to feed
these kids at any cost and with no help from the government or others. |
