Afghan Charity Week 2020 has been a completely student-led initiative, running across several university institutions over the month of February. We have all come together for one crucial cause; investing in Afghanistan, our motherland. Students are giving all their time and energy to fundraise and raise awareness about the recurring issues in Afghanistan, for the duration of a week. Students have been educating, hosting bake sales, as well as many charity events, among their student communities.

An insight into the magnitude of the issue:

As you may be aware, Afghanistan is a country that has been in a state of constant war for almost 40 years now. Between the 3 months of July and September 2019, approximately 4313 men, women and children have been killed in Afghanistan. To put this into perspective, imagine for the next three months, 48 women, men and children will die every single day, leaving countless families broken and alone.

The poorest families in Afghanistan are still reliant upon their orphan children to make an income to enable them to meet the basic needs of food, warmth and shelter. Often working in hazardous conditions, the vulnerable orphans are denied the basic human right to an education. The UNHCR estimated that there were 50,000 to 60,000 street children in the capital alone, with 29% of children aged 5-17 engaged in child labour (International Labour Organisation, 2019). Child labour is undoubtedly a fundamental problem still eminent in the country, only exacerbated by the decades of war and poverty. Children working on the streets only pose the children at greater risk of dangers such as hazardous work settings, death in road traffic accidents, sexual exploitations and kidnappings.

It only fits right that as students we invest in the children and students of Afghanistan, after all they shape the generations to come. We will therefore, along with help from the UK-registered charity Noble Connection, work with hundreds of families in order to take children off the streets and support them & their families through their education.

#StudentsForAfghanistan