Most of the projects we have funded are continuing, although many have to adapt to the requirements of the new government. The Foundation is also adapting to the changing situation, for example with our scholarship programme where we have introduced student living allowances.
We can transfer money by person-to-person transfer, which enables us to fund particular programmes, but it is not yet possible to send funds by bank transfer.
Every little helps
Every little helps. That’s what we’ve found in more than 10 years of supporting numerous individuals and small projects, where we can see the results and you can be sure that your donations are being put to good use.
On this page you can see just how your money is spent, month by month.
2023
Distribution of heating stoves and fuel.
January
£58,367 paid for the distribution of 1,081 food parcels to desperately poor families headed by women. Most were delivered by staff of the Gawharshad High School, working as volunteers. The other charities involved were Glasgow Afghan United, Afghanistan Green Future Organisation, and Aseel.
£1,010 enabled Orphans Friends Charity Foundation to buy and distribute 150 pairs of shoes to orphans and poor children in Parwan province.
February
£27,560 to enable Afghan charity LEFAO to distribute 200 heating stoves and wood fuel to families headed by women both in Kabul and the rural Salang province. Some were keeping warm by burning discarded plastic bottles in an open fire. All were enabled to better withstand the freezing Afghan winter.
£8,334 to continue the inspiring work of the CheeringAF maternal health clinic in Herat, run by three female volunteers from the local hospital. The clinic supports pre-natal and post-natal mothers as well as providing supplements to semi-starved infants. Read more about this work.
£8,500 provided vocational training to 40 young women in sewing, embroidery, and the making and selling of confectionery. Afghan charity LEFAO gave the necessary equipment to successful students at the end of the course.
March
£4,957 continued our support to Serve Afghanistan who help visually impaired students, allowing them to access mainstream education by producing Braille textbooks for students and giving teacher training as required.
£6,675 provided 50 student scholarships at Gawharshad High School in Kabul, covering the cost of tuition fees, uniforms, textbooks, and stationery packs for primary aged girls from poor backgrounds.
£33,804 for the LNF scholarship students’ living allowances, paid digitally through a mobile phone app, with 136 students each receiving $300 (£240). This will be their final payment now that it is clear universities will not reopen for women anytime soon. We are investigating several alternatives as to how we can continue to help them now that their Afghan education has been halted.
April
Emergency transport for women in labour has reduced maternal deaths.
£10,720 to HealthProm to provide emergency transport for women in labour in the remote Kaldar region of Balkh province. This has been proven to have reduced maternal and infant deaths since LNF first funded this project in 2020, with only one maternal death in 2022 as opposed to an average of 16 previously.
May
£17,623 allowed our long-standing supporter, Habibulla Noori, to improve two schools in a remote district of Bamyan province. Solar panels, computers, printers, and stationery have been provided for both. Drinking water has been piped more than 6km from the nearest spring to the Sare Bolaq school.
£12,000 to La Chaine de l’Espoir to provide life-changing surgeries for eight mothers and 17 girls at the French Medical Institute in Kabul. Funding also covers the cost of transportation, accommodation during recovery, healthcare advice and follow-up appointments. Read more about the women and children who have benefited from this.
June
£10,356 allowed Italian charity Nove Onlus to refurbish two bakeries, staff them with women bakers and then supply 50 families with their daily bread for four months – 30,000 loaves in total – before continuing as a going concern.
£10,932 paid for the first round of our ‘direct giving’ trial project. We have identified 25 women who are heading families who we’ll fund for six months at $90 a month. For many it will be a welcome respite from crushing poverty. We hope some will be able to use this opportunity to improve their circumstances in the longer term.
2022
Children at the Gawharshad High School benefit from student scholarships funded by the Foundation.
January
£4,000 to the online Afghan Children’s Songbook, making traditional Afghan children’s songs available free to teachers and families across the country.
£3,500 was donated to Afghan Aid’s rural development projects via the ‘Big Give Christmas Challenge Campaign’ where every £1 donated was quadrupled.
£19,960 for our scholarship students‘ living allowances for the autumn semester of 2021, to pay for their accommodation, food, transport and books. This is essential now that the students have lost nearly all opportunity of part-time work.
Shukria collects blankets and a heating stove.
£62,050 delivered more than 1,400 food and hygiene parcels to poor families headed by women.
£93,295 paid to six universities and colleges for 2021 fees for 110 medical, dentistry, midwifery and nursing scholarships. This payment was due last year but was held up by the failure of the banking system.
£18,563 covered the cost of three rounds of the distribution of stoves and fuel by volunteers from Gawharshad High School to 180 vulnerable women who are the breadwinners for their families, both in Kabul and rural Bamyan province. Read more about this project.
£8,500 to the Scottish charity Glasgow Afghan United funding two rounds of food parcel distributions (above) in January and April, to 240 families in the Kunduz and Baghlan Provinces, where the charity has good local contacts.
£9,188 pays the 2021 fees for 35 scholarships at Gawharshad University, for women studying law, economics, business and computer science.
£1,588 enabled Orphans Friends Charity Foundation to buy coats for more than 200 orphans and poor children in Parwan province.
February
£795 enabled Orphans Friends Charity Foundation to distribute new shoes to more than 200 children in Parwan province.
March
£5,982 continued our support to Serve Afghanistan who help visually-impaired students, allowing them to access mainstream primary to higher education by producing educational materials in Braille, MP3 and large print.
£9,900 funded the charity HealthProm, providing emergency transport for women in labour in the remote Kaldar region of Balkh province in the north of Afghanistan.
April
£6,100 provided 50 student scholarships at the private Gawharshad High School, covering the cost of fees, stationery, uniforms and books for primary-aged girls from poor backgrounds.
£3,300 provides funding for Afghan charity LEFAO to support children who had been working on the street into school. Twenty children started school and are receiving additional vocational training – plumbing and wiring for the boys and embroidery for the girls.
May
£14,481 to help launch a free telemedicine service for Afghans. The money covered upgrading the security and accessibility of their IT systems and funding three female doctors in Kabul – two gynaecologists and a paediatrician – to provide remote consultations to women and children.
June
£33,360 for another round of scholarship students’ living allowances – we pay two rounds every year.
£16,000 to Afghan charity Aschiana to run two schools in camps for internally displaced people in Kabul for those who have been fled their homes, usually because of heavy fighting.
A woman has her blood pressure taken at a NoveOlus mobile health clinic.
£8,500 allowed the Italian charity NoveOnlus to run a mobile health clinic for a year, providing free health care in deprived areas. The doctors see around 55 patients a day, of whom 75% are women and children.
July
£15,300 pays for surgery for 15 children and 12 mothers at the French Children’s Hospital in Kabul. Read more about this project.
September
£24,100 to the CURE hospital in Kabul funded four women doctors’ residencies, each of which lasts for three years, and also the running costs of two mobile clinics in camps for internally displaced persons by volunteering CURE doctors and staff.
£4,400 pays for a mother and baby clinic in Herat run by a volunteer hospital doctor and midwife.
£7,200 paid a group of Afghan refugees in France, previously academics, to support Afghan women running informal teaching centres for secondary aged girls throughout Afghanistan.
£1,800 provided the final element of funding allowing Business for a Better Society to build a women’s centre in the Wakhan Valley.
October
£8,900 funded our partner, volunteer staff from the Gawharshad private school in Kabul, to give 200 primary school girls support packages including uniforms, satchels, books and stationery
November/December
£10,000 towards a project run by Hand in Hand providing funding, mentoring and support, for 300 women in Balkh province starting small businesses.
£1,300 provided six prizes for the best academic performances of our sponsored university students.
Hand in Hand provides support for women starting small businesses.
£41,200 living allowances of $600 a year for all our 148 scholarship students.
£144,670 university fees for 2022.
£3,060 annual subscription for the Lecturio online resource for the medical students.
£91,270 funded the Afghan Children’s Circus’s programme of festivals across the provinces, totally funded by a matching grant from the VITOL Foundation. The Children’s Circus is registered in Denmark where the banking restrictions are very tight, and accounts summarily closed if any funds go to Afghanistan. Funding through the Foundation avoided this.
2021
Parwin and her family are among those who have received food parcels funded by the Foundation.
December
£101,300 due to be paid to universities and colleges for 2021 scholarship fees when bank transfers restart.
£23,000 due to pay to our students a living allowance for the Autumn 2021 semester.
November
In partnership with small Afghan charity AGFO, we started a programme of distributing food and hygiene parcels to women heading families in camps for internally displaced persons. We have committed to paying £2,200 a week, potentially reaching £15,400 this year. Read more about the families supported by this programme.
October
£9,730 funded three residencies for female doctors training at the CURE hospital in Kabul. Each residency lasts for three years at a cost of £4,490 per year. We fund two and part-fund one in conjunction with a US doctor.
£251 paid Shahida’s fees to study medicine for a semester in Kandahar.
July
£10,004 paid for Eid gifts and contributions towards internet costs for online classes for our 163 scholarship students.
June
£5,000 towards relief efforts organised by Serve Afghanistan to help families who fled their homes during intense fighting in Laghman province.
£4,924 allows two schools in Bamyan province to install additional security to boundary walls and provides a drinking water supply for one of the schools.
£5,054 enables the Afghan Children’s Circus to stage their annual circus festival which, Covid-19 restrictions allowing, comprises a series of performances and competitions in circus skills across the country.
May
£6,990 allows Afghan charity AGFO to help 20 women from a disadvantaged area to start street trading businesses in their local neighbourhoods, something usually done by men,
Mother and baby at a midwifery clinic we have helped to fund.
£6,485 to French charity Afghanistan Libre to open and run a midwifery clinic in a marginal area outside Kabul.
£7,000 to UK charity Concern‘s ‘Ration Challenge’ in which volunteers raised money by limiting their eating to a refugee camp daily allowance for a week. Our money doubled what they raised and funded the AWARE programme which helps women to start and run very small businesses in rural areas in the northern provinces.
£17,460 to the French Children’s Hospital in Kabul to carry out 15 surgeries for children, 17 treatments and surgeries for women from refugee camps, and to distribute 200 hygiene kits to families within the camps.
March
£6,485 enabled Italian charity Nove Onlus to convert a minibus for wheelchair access, extending the capacity of the Pink Shuttle bus service.
£8,000 enables Aschiana, an Afghan charity, to equip, open and run a basic school for a year for 50 children within a refugee camp in Kabul.
February
£2,392 pays for practical training for the medical students we sponsor in the CURE hospital in Kabul.
January
£4,415 allows Serve Afghanistan to continue their programme of producing Braille books, allowing blind children to access local schools.