Afghanistan’s Blog

Children in Crisis' Programme Manager, Bethan Williams, visited Afghanistan to monitor the programme. Here she describes her visit to one of our projects with the Kuchi community.

"I managed to escape the hot dusty streets of the capital, Kabul only once during my recent visit to Afghanistan, to visit one of Children in Crisis’ newest and most interesting education projects.

One hour north of Kabul where the high mountains give way to huge plains lays Qarabagh, a village inhabited mainly by Kuchi, one of the most disadvantaged tribes in Afghanistan. Ghulam Sakhi, the leader of the village approached Children in Crisis after hearing about our work through a relative and asked us to visit his village.

Traditionally, Kuchi keep herds of sheep or goats and travel throughout the year to find fresh pastures for their animals. The war in Afghanistan has had a disastrous effect on the Kuchi’s traditional nomadic way of life. The extensive use of landmines throughout the country has made it unsafe to continue herding cattle and widespread drought has meant that they now struggle to find green pastures for their animals in the dry months of the year.

The Qarabagh community, like many others, has been forced to settle and was attracted to the outskirts of Kabul by the bustling markets which provides them with the opportunity to trade their animals and animal products. Settling has not been an easy step and has meant they have had to adjust rapidly to a new style of life. According to Ghulam Sakhi, this is a new phase for the community and for Kuchi as a whole. For them, gaining an education is the only way that they can survive as a settled community, without it they are lost.

During my visit I met some of the boys and girls who are benefiting from lessons on the Children in Crisis project. The enthusiasm of these children was touching; they were so happy to learn and recounted stories of how they are even teaching their fathers to read and write. For the majority of these children this is the first time that they have been to school and since they have spent most of their childhood travelling, they are now too old to start school in Grade 1. Children in Crisis’ project is helping these children receive education up to a recognised standard so that they can then enrol in government schools at grade 3. Children in Crisis is not only providing education but also life skills, which involves sessions on areas that we take for granted such as crossing the road safely and the location of education and health facilities in and around their communities.

The project extends to providing women’s literacy classes and this is where the community leader and Children in Crisis staff have had to work extremely hard with husbands to persuade them to allow their wives to attend classes. Kuchi women traditionally rarely leave their homes without being accompanied by a male relative. This hard work has paid off, however, and during my visit the women were keen to show me what they had learnt and tell me how their husbands now depend on them rather than the other way round.

Thanks to the hard work of Children in Crisis staff in-country and the dedication of Ghulam Sakhi, this community is now adjusting well to a positive, settled future. There are currently no other NGOs working with the Kuchi and Children in Crisis is hoping to increase support for the wider community. Before I left I asked the community leader if there was anything else that he or others needed. ‘No’, he replied, ‘now that we have education we have everything we need’. "