Story
<p>This is a very dangerous place to work; I cannot even walk outside of the house without my native Afghan guard. Just last week, the Taliban blew up our corner grocery store and fourteen people were killed. It could have very easily been my wife and I and some of our staff. These circumstances do not deter us, but they make our work all the more challenging. <br /><br />Recently, we were targeted by a terrorist group. As a result, we had to temporarily evacuate our Expats and permanently move the office. We quickly resumed operations later, but the incident significantly interrupted our grant writing and fundraising efforts. Even without threats like these, securing grants here is very challenging and time consuming because of the multiple governments involved and the the caution exercised by funders due to the present war. Most of our funding comes through grants from agencies such as the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, USAID and various governments. The only other source of funding we have is through people like yourselves. Your support is extremely valuable because it is unrestricted funding which allows us to continue in-between grants. Without this source of funding, we could not survive. <br /><br />At this time our cash reserves are very low and we need £41,000 to keep our programme going. It is essential for us to retain our staff who are trained, loyal and trustworthy because we cannot hire just anyone. For example, the police informed us that the terrorist group mentioned above was planning to infiltrate our organization by getting us to hire some of their people! Fortunately that never happened. <br /><br />Currently, we have one grant which will end in May and we are awaiting word on two major grants which would keep us busy for several years. Unfortunately, we recently had to lay off seven of our loyal employees, some of whom had worked for us since 2002. It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for them to get work anywhere else. When we get the new grants, we will eagerly hire these employees back. We are desperately in need of your support or we will need to lay off more staff in just a few months. Our goal is to raise £41,000 by the end of May. <br /><br />Exercise your “Power of One” and make a donation to our work. You can send a cheque made out to Hope Worldwide (marked Afghanistan on the back) and post it to us at 360 City Road, London EC1V 2PY. Or you can donate through JustGiving (at www.justgiving.com/4afghanistan), which is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. It is also to make the donation anonymously if you prefer. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - we raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity. So please dig deep and donate now.</p>