by Jacqui Ooi, ChildFund Australia
Over the course of January’s 31 days, we’re making a blog stop in each country where we serve children, thanks to the generous support of our sponsors and donors. Today, we meet Ahmadullah Zahid, who was forced to flee his native Afghanistan at age 13. Now 28, Ahmadullah is working for ChildFund Afghanistan, assisting other returnee families and their children.
I was 13 when we fled to Pakistan. At this time, the security situation in Afghanistan was very bad. There was fighting everywhere. I remember when I was a kid, every night suddenly a fight would start between two commanders – very huge fighting around our houses and we were unable to sleep.
Several times at school, we were busy studying and suddenly the fighting started, and everybody started jumping from the windows and running out the doors, running toward home.
Then slowly, slowly the school was closed and there was no school to go to, and it was also difficult to work. So that’s why we decided to go to another country. At least we could study and we could live safely.
We returned to Afghanistan in 2005. I came back first to repair our house – the doors, windows, everything was broken. Of course, we were happy to return, very excited. After such a long time, we were returning to our home country and the situation was completely different. We were seeing the changes in the faces of the people – good changes, happy changes.
Ahmadullah (center) talks to a school authority about a ChildFund project in Badakhshan.
I first started working as a monitoring officer for a ChildFund project in my home province of Kunduz. When the project was completed, I was promoted to operations officer. Now I work at the head office in Kabul as the program support manager. I love my role because I go to the field and talk to the people who are served by ChildFund and see the happiness on their faces, and I really feel that ChildFund is doing something for them.
ChildFund meets with community to assess needs.
The situation now for children in Afghanistan depends on where they live. In some places, it’s still very hard, especially in areas where the security’s not good and the government and NGOs still don’t have access to these places. So you can imagine there’s no school for the children. Most of them are helping their fathers with the farm work. From the age of 7, they are taking their cows and goats to pasture in the morning and returning in the evening, without any break.
The children would prefer to go to school but they also feel, “If I don’t do this, who will? I have to support my father. He’s all alone feeding our family.” In Afghanistan, it is typical to have a big family – the average number of children is seven – with only the father earning income.
In other areas, where the security is good, children still support their fathers but also go to school part-time – girls included. In most areas, especially in the north where ChildFund is working, there is access to school.
I recently started working on a new project – the Resettlement Support for Afghan Returnee Families – in Nangarhar Province, bordering Pakistan. The Afghanistan government has established a special camp for these returning families. Currently, around 3,500 families are living there, but there is capacity for 10,000 families.
Visiting an ECD Center in Nangarhar Province.
ChildFund is building five early child care centers, especially for 3- to 5-year-olds. These centers offer three-hour sessions twice a day, preparing the children for school. We also offer parenting sessions for approximately 1,000 mothers of 1,200 young children.
The other priority in this community is drinking water. It’s a mountainous area, so we are building seven solar-powered water systems. As a result, we’ll be able to provide water for around 1,400 families.
ChildFund has also provided resources for Afghanistan children through the Gifts of Love & Hope, including water mugs and jugs. These are especially needed so that children can carry water with them when they’re going to school. The weather is extremely hot during summer, up to 47 degrees centigrade (116 Fahrenheit). We have also distributed football equipment so children have an opportunity to play again.
ChildFund distributes winterization kits to families.
In addition, we are establishing Child Well-Being Committees to provide children with training on issues such as child protection, child rights and domestic violence. Recently, we provided 750 of the most vulnerable families in the community with winterization kits, blankets and other items for the cold weather.
Overall conditions have improved for the children who returned to Afghanistan in the last few years. They tell me: “Before we returned, we were very much afraid that we wouldn’t have a place to live, that we would not have any income.” But when they returned, the government provided land. Then UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) came and built houses. And now many of these children are going to school and receiving assistance through ChildFund. A pathway has opened for them.
Discover more about ChildFund’s programs in Afghanistan. And if you’d like to help with ChildFund’s winterization project, please visit our Fund a Project site.
Before Genito was matched with a ChildFund sponsor in 2009, he admits that he didn’t know about birthday celebrations.
At Genito’s home there is a broken freezer where he pastes the stickers received from his sponsor. The front panel is now a menagerie.
Enrolled in 
More than anything, Kristina wanted to take dance classes. Yet without a wheelchair that she could maneuver, that dream was out of reach. In fact, Belarus government safety regulations prohibited children under 14 from using active wheelchairs. The rule presented serious barriers for Kristina and 5,000 other teenagers using wheelchairs in Belarus. These young people could not fully participate in educational and cultural activities or sports. Being dependent on others to move them from place to place also had a negative impact on the children’s physical development.
While the foster parents enjoyed a meal that they, for once, did not have to cook, the children squirmed and wiggled in their seats. They would take bites here and there, but it was hard to think about eating with all the excitement and buzz that a special guest was expected to soon arrive. Community members and a few of the older foster children attempted to keep the younger ones entertained by painting characters on faces and hands.
A noise was heard outside…. What was that? A fire engine? Surely not a fire on this special evening! The children raced to the door just in time to see – to their surprise – Santa and Mrs. Claus climbing down from the big Westville Fire Department fire engine.
We managed to get the children seated on the carpet and Santa in his chair. The Jolly Elf then called the children up one by one to receive gifts and a stocking filled with goodies. The local Vo-Tech center’s Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) nursing group donated the presents. The student group hosted fundraisers throughout the year so they could buy gifts for the children. ChildFund’s Southern Plains Area Office provided the stockings and goodies.
Everyone went home happy that December night. I left humbled by the magic of the evening. Our community had come together to honor the dedicated foster parents in our area and to celebrate children who are too often overlooked.
To create a collaborative dialogue around questions that matter to children, ChildFund India initiated a 60-day process of intense listening to children across the country, inviting them to present their ideas, views, aspirations and fears. Twenty-eight ChildFund India staff members and partners were trained on interacting with children and capturing their voices using World Café and Appreciative Enquiry processes. They hosted 60 children’s cafés in their area, with 1,789 children participating from nine states in India: Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
We listened to children … to their spoken and unspoken words. We let them express themselves in various ways. They are hurt, humiliated, isolated and ignored. They are unable to trust, since they are harmed by parents, family, peers and relatives, teachers and community. They have suffered physical violence and psychological violence including utter neglect, discrimination, humiliation and maltreatment, which has a damaging impact on their overall well-being. Many circumstances, depending upon the severity of the violence, have left them scarred for a lifetime.
However, having experienced deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability, it does not deter children from appreciating what they have: their families, their homes, their friends, their teachers, their schools, their community and the gift of life itself.
