Right now, half of Afghanistan's children urgently need humanitarian support. The recent upheaval has only exacerbated the challenges children were already facing in a country battling ongoing conflict, chronic poverty, recurrent natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. Those who have managed to flee the country in recent months will now need help and protection to travel safely to new countries to rebuild their lives.

But millions of children remain in Afghanistan, displaced from their homes, hungry, cut off from aid supplies, out of school and facing the threat of violence. And as the winter sets in, freezing nights without shelter will bring another threat to children's lives.

Children's education is being hugely impacted. Over 300,000 children have been forced to flee their homes and schools since the beginning of this year. This has taken away their chance to learn - their brightest hope for a better, fairer future.

That's why the NEU is supporting Save the Children's Emergency Fund, to help children in Afghanistan and other disasters around the world to stay safe, healthy and learning.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

1) Make a direct donation to Save the Children's Emergency Fund via this page - either as an individual member or from your local District

2) Organise a Stand Up for Afghanistan fundraiser in your school in the last week of term (w/c 13th December) to raise funds for Save the Children's Emergency Fund. Download a fundraising guide at neu.org.uk/international

To give you an idea of how your support could help:

- If as an individual you donated £9, this could provide an Afghan refugee child living in Pakistan with a learning kit, including notebooks, a geometry box, pens, pencils and a backpack, so they can continue their schooling

- If as a District you donated £356, this could pay for two temporary learning centre tents for a school or community in Afghanistan, so children who have been uprooted from their homes don't miss out on their education.

- If as a School you raised £500, this could provide 100 seriously malnourished children with one week's supply of high-nutrient peanut paste.

Together we could make a huge difference to the lives of children affected by the crisis in Afghanistan and other disasters around the world.

- £25,000 could help build the capacity of over 270 community health workers, with the potential to reach almost 19,000 children.

- £36,000 could provide learning kits to 4,000 Afghan refugee children living in Pakistan.

- £50,000 could pay for 745 families of seven to buy enough food supplies for a month.

Thank you for your generous support.

We're incredibly grateful for a £5,000 national donation made by the NEU. We'd also like to thank the following Districts that have kindly donated offline: Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole (£1,000), Bradford (£1,000) Bromley (£1,000), Buckinghamshire (£1,000), Bury (£500), Cheshire West (£400), Croydon (£1,000), Devon (£3,000), Dorset (£500), East Kent (£1,000), Gloucestershire (£500), Harrow (£250), Hounslow (£500), Lewes Eastbourne (£1,000), Newham (£200) Oldham (£100), Staffordshire (£250), Stockport (£250), South West Lancashire (£500), Surrey (£750), Swansea (£500), Swindon (£300), Wakefield (£500), Walsall (£100), Waltham Forest (£1,000), Warwickshire (£1,500), West Essex (£500), West Sussex (£500).