Small acts that change the future

Afghanistan’s people have endured a protracted period of hardship and insecurity which is affecting generation after generation of Afghans in every corner of the country. Forty years of conflict, frequent natural disasters and poverty, COVID-19 pandemic, widespread loss of livelihoods, banking crisis, hard currency shortage and rising food prices are exacerbating their share of socio-economic challenges, yet they have not lost hope.

We will not solve these problems overnight, but we can give people the strength to get through the winter and the energy to build better long-term solutions.

We know this because we’re living this.

We have helped hundreds of families in the past few weeks and it is a drop in the ocean, but just because we can’t save everyone, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help a few. Let us give you an example....

A few years ago, we met a widow who was struggling with her potato harvest. Because she had no storage, she was forced to sell all her harvest when the prices were so low she could barely pay back the loan for the seeds. We simply offered to help her with her storage and provide some guidance.

Her two young boys were working full time to help her so they couldn’t go to school. Having storage meant she was able to sell her potatoes when the prices were better and could repay back the loan. This financial security meant she didn’t need the boys to help her full time anymore so she could send them to school. So this simple act of providing storage, meant her sons could be educated.

For the equivalent of a couple of hundred dollars we can feed a family of six for 6 months, so it may be a drop in the ocean, but if we are able to help a couple of families to survive through the winter, we are saving lives.

The life that made us is what makes us want to do this and if we can save even just a few lives, who knows what those people will achieve.

It may be a drop in the ocean, but every little drop creates a ripple that can become a wave.