Afghanistan is legendary as a difficult and dangerous place to live – and work. So when there’s good news it’s especially worth celebrating. TEAR’s partner SERVE Afghanistan recently reported some exciting milestones from its Eastern Region Community Development Program. This project works with poor and vulnerable rural families, including returning refugees. Over the past five years:

▪   3,016 families have received young heifers and goats, plus training and support, to help establish a local dairy industry. There are 20 breeding bull stations in the project area, ten of which are fully managed by the community, and nine trained para-vets.

▪   2,026 people have gained basic literacy and numeracy skills in Pashto, one of the official languages of Afghanistan. An estimated 50% of women and men in the project area are now literate, starting from a base of 100% and 85% illiteracy for women and men respectively.

▪   The local dialect, Pashai, has never been recorded in written form, so project staff have worked with a local language committee to create an approved Pashai alphabet, primer, three story books and a basic dictionary.

▪    260 people – equal numbers of men and women – have participated in self-help groups, learning kitchen gardening, growing fruit trees and establishing savings schemes.

So what do these statistics look like in real life? Read one family’s story:

“My name is Alah Nazer. I live in Said Kamal village, in Dara-I-Noor district, and I have nine children. When we returned from living as refugees in Pakistan about ten years ago, we were very poor and had a lot of problems. Our house was completely destroyed, so our family lived in a neighbour’s house. People sometimes gave us milk and butter-milk for our children, because we didn’t have the money to buy a milking cow.

“When SERVE gave us a heifer, all of our family worked to care for it. When a calf is born, we return a heifer to the project to distribute to another family. We sold two bulls in the local market, and used the money to begin the construction of part of our house, which we have now moved into. At this time we have three milking cows with two calves. As well as having milk to drink, during summer we sell around 21kg of cheese a month to earn 6,000 Pakistan Rupees ($68) a month income.”

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