Supporting women in Afghanistan is still making a difference

International aid has been frozen and the country is on the brink of economic collapse: the banks have run out of cash, there is no money to pay salaries and not enough food for people. 

At Women for Women International, adapting our programmes to meet the needs of the women we serve and the constraints in which they live, is part of our DNA. Our women participants in Afghanistan tell us that feeding their families is their top priority. So, we’ll provide chickens and kits to start kitchen gardens. While addressing their urgent needs, this will also help them earn an income in the months to come. They tell us they need money and ways for them to connect with each other. So, we’re finding safe ways to transfer cash and provide them with mobile phones that will also enable us to deliver training to them virtually.   

At an intensely stressful time, we are providing psychological first aid training to women in our programmes through a combination of individual and group phone calls with women who are able to meet in small groups in one of their houses. This is the first time since August that some of the women have been able to connect in person and they are excited to be able to do that. We’ve learned that these connections, however small, are still making a difference.  

Your support is still making a difference.  

But, we also need the wider international community to step up and respond to the humanitarian crisis.  As a matter of urgency, we appeal to them and to all governments to restart aid to Afghanistan immediately.