You don't hear much about Afghanistan anymore. It's a shame because while Iraq is more of a hot-button issue, Afghanistan has the greater needs. Life is bad in Iraq. That's obvious to all, but it is a day in the park compared to Afghanistan. The poverty, repression and corruption are so bad it should shame everyone in the world with a social conscience. The group most victimized by the situation there are the women. Under the Taliban we saw the executions, the disfiguring, the repression. Many believed that it would get better once the Taliban were gone. It hasn't.
One organization has been fighting for women's right in Afghanistan since 1977. A more courageous, more dedicated group you will never find. Read more about RAWA below...
According to their website
http://www.rawa.org, The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan is "the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977."
RAWA has been fighting for civil rights, human rights and especially women's rights in Afghanistan since the first started handing out anti-Soviet leaflets while under the puppet Soviet regime. When the fundamentalists chased the Russians out and took over, things went from bad to worse. Throughout the terrible period of warlords followed by the dark days of the Taliban, this brave group of women have continued to demand equal rights, the end to religious tyranny, and the end to honor killings and other "social" oppression of women. Their movement has been essentially non-violent, but never mild. Their rhetoric is fierce and determined.
They continue to confront the authorities including the central government, the warlords and the local authorities on the treatment of all Afghanis, not just women.
Their work spans both Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Pakistan they work in the areas of Education, Health Care, Human Rights, Cultural and Propaganda/Political/Social areas.
Education: To run 15 primary and secondary schools for refugee girls and boys and many literacy courses for women. To provide teachers and material for some schools for refugee children especially girls' schools run not by the fundamentalists. RAWA is also running 9 orphanages in Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Quetta comprising girls and boys.
Health care: We have mobile health teams in Pakistan that are active mainly in refugee camps in Peshawar and Quetta. RAWA also runs Malalai Hospital in a refugee camp in Peshawar and Malalai Clinic in Quetta, which provide free medical care to Afghan women and children
Human rights: We are providing human rights and other interested organizations and media with news and reports about killing, stoning, amputation, imprisoning, torturing, beating, lashing, insulting and other inhuman acts of the fundamentalists. We also try to put all or at least important parts of the news and reports on our web site in addition of printing parts of them in our publications.
Cultural: Producing cassettes of songs usually with anti-fundamentalist contents and those containing educative subjects. Staging dramas and skits; holding "Nights of poetry" and "Nights of story"; publishing posters, brochures, booklets, "Payam-e-Zan" (both online and printed editions) in Pashtu, Persian and Urdu and the non-periodical "The Burst of The 'Islamic Government' Bubble in Afghanistan" in English.
Propaganda and political/social: To organize demonstrations or functions on February 4, March 8, April 28, December 10 and December 27, in addition of some unexpected major events which may require an impressive action from women. To hold press conferences, to issue press releases and distribute statements and leaflets, to keep the web site updated and enriched with photos and reports from Afghanistan, facts and informative write-ups. To participate at the events of Pakistani political parties or women's rights groups in order to expose the fundamentalists' crimes and raise awareness of the people here about the situation in Afghanistan. To give interviews with many print and electronic media, to take some journalists inside the country and refugee camps in Pakistan, contact with other Afghan and foreign organizations etc.
We also have many different social circles in which the participated women and girls are being thought about the concepts of women's rights, the nature of the fundamentalists, objectives of our Association, conditions of the women under the fundamentalists, the need for struggle against the religious bigots and for the human rights, ways and means for the speedy solution of the Afghan problem and involvement in the social and political life of the country.
We are also assisting the widows and the families of the prisoners. We contact those who have member of their families imprisoned by the Taliban or Jehadis inside Afghanistan or caught by the Pakistani police and put in the jails of this country. We help them by contacting the police and in some cases providing them judicial and legal help. We are also helping those women who are being tortured or maltreated by their husbands or in-laws. If the tortured/abused women wanted shelter, we try to help them in any possible way.
Financial: Running handicrafts, carpet, tailoring and bead knitting workplaces; running chicken and fish farms; producing jams and pickles and making chalk etc.
In Afghanistan:
Our work inside Afghanistan consists mainly of support to female victims of war and atrocities committed by belligerent groups. Our workers contact families and particularly women who either themselves or their family members have been victimized by the fundamentalists. Highlighting their misadventures via reports published in Women's Message, alerting international sentinels of human rights such as Amnesty International and similar organizations to human rights violations against women, providing psycho-social support, transferring victims to Pakistan for medical treatment, transferring children of traumatized families to Pakistan for rehabilitation and a better chance of education, tracing missing females and/or their family members, assisting families in evacuating from battlefield and areas affected by any natural calamities and resettling them in safer places, supplying such families with basic living needs and in extreme cases identifying sponsors for 'family adoption' of uprooted families or individuals and facilitating their integration. We also distribute food among needy families in drought/war/earthquake-stricken villages.
Despite the abovementioned activities, our regular activities inside Afghanistan can be summarized as follows:
Educational/propaganda: Though our activities inside Afghanistan are underground and restricted due to the prejudiced and brutal behavior of the fundamentalists, we are successfully running our "home-based" schools and literacy courses. For the time being we are running schools for girls and boys and literacy courses for illiterate women and young girls. Our work under the fundamentalists is difficult and dangerous. We also have circles of women and young girls in which we discuss with them about concepts such as women rights, the need to fight the fundamentalists, the necessity of education and social participation, concepts of democracy and civic freedoms and the ways to solve the Afghan problem and maintaining women's and human rights in Afghanistan.
Health-care: We have mobile health teams in 8 provinces of Afghanistan. The mobile teams mainly treat those women who cannot go to the doctors because of their financial problems. We also treat the children and in some cases the wounded men. In the areas where they work, our mobile teams are usually delivering about 3-child per day. In addition of treating the women and children, our teams are also running first aide courses for young girls and literate women. Last year the teams successfully carried out the polio vaccination program in their concerned areas.
Financial: We have chicken farms, small carpet-weaving, embroidery and knitting workplaces, bee- fostering project, handicraft and tailoring units. All these projects are under the direct control and supervision of RAWA. Moreover, we also provide assistance to those women who want to run their own projects like chicken-farms, handicraft or tailoring. By providing them short-term loans we help lots of these women, who are mostly widows, to feed their families.
As you can see, RAWA struggles valiantly against incredible odds to do amazing work. They are not a big, international NGO. They don't have massive donor lists and sophisticated marketing plans. They just do the essential work on the ground to better the lives of the men, women and children of Afghanistan.
Their needs are so acute, yet so modest. They run a hospital in Fara, in Western Afghanistan. It provides vital health care to over 150 patients a day in a province with only one other poorly-run state hospital. The total budget for the hospital for a year is $98,000, yet it may close at any time because of budget problems.
Literacy programs for women are essential for raising the standard of living for the women of Afghanistan and allowing them to directly participate in their own struggle for rights. RAWA originally began over 540 literacy courses for women once the Taliban fell. Each course taught between 15 and 20 women and girls. Unfortunately, once the Iraq war started, the money dried up and they had to shut down many of these programs. Each course only costs $1000 for a year, yet the money is only shrinking, not growing.
If you want to help, check out this page for more information including how to help via credit card.
Read more about them on their website. I have no connection with RAWA. They don't even know I exist except for having donated and bought items from them. Just this morning I was wearing my RAWA t-shirt and it reminded me that I had never written a diary, nor seen one, about this amazing group.
When I began writing this diary I originally thought of just raising awareness of RAWA. As I caught up with what they were doing and the financial problems they're having, it became more of a plea for help. I hope you can either help directly, or at least bring this group to the attention of those who can.
Thank you,
Plane Crazy