Donate warmth – together we can ensure that 277 internally displaced Afghan families get through the cold season this winter! 

Even beyond the first goal, you can continue to donate to this year’s winter emergency relief! Due to the withdrawal of numerous NGOs from Afghanistan, urgent humanitarian aid is now more important than ever, especially during the winter months.

We are in close contact with our colleagues on site to determine where the donations are most urgently needed and will of course keep you up to date. Thank you so much for your support and trust!

In Afghanistan, the winters are a time when large parts of the population have to fight for their survival: temperatures down to minus 30 degrees hit people whose only accommodation is tents or makeshift huts without heating. Every year, Afghan winters result in deaths from frost and starvation. In the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, the population is particularly vulnerable this year – and the first snow is falling already. If we take action now, we can provide a refugee camp in the north of the country with essential food and resources. Will you join us?

We feel it in Germany, too: the days are getting shorter, the temperatures are falling and everyone is talking about heating costs and saving energy. Winter has also arrived in Afghanistan – even earlier than in previous years. The questions families there must ask themselves – amid a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and political uncertainty – are existential: Can I feed and keep my family warm over the next few months? Will we survive the winter?

Together we can now contribute to 277 internally displaced families answering these questions with “YES”: With Visions for Children we are starting a humanitarian winter emergency relief this year and are supplying a refugee camp near Mazar-e-Sharif with food and heating packages. Each pack costs around €110* and consists of non-perishable food items such as 50kg flour, 10kg rice, 10l cooking oil, 5kg noodles, 2kg tomato paste, 1kg tea und 3,5kg sugar as well as warming blankets. It can cover the needs of a family of 5 for 2-3 months. Can we reach the donation goal of €30,470 together?

The Refugee Camp

More than 3.5 million people are displaced in Afghanistan, many of them living in IDP (internally displaced persons) camps. They are fleeing natural disasters, such as this year’s severe earthquake, conflicts, or are looking for work. The conditions in the camps are catastrophic: people live in simple mud huts or tents without protection from the weather, access to sanitary facilities, health care or food is either non-existent or very difficult.

This year we have the opportunity to reach 277 families in the Qalinbafan camp, near the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. The camp has existed for 10 years, but just last year many additional families fled there – due to conflicts in other regions of the country. They have to walk into town every day in search of temporary work, yet the average income of $1.72 is well below the poverty line! Many families fear the onset of winter, particularly due to the rapidly increasing cost of food – due to a severe lack of international support for Afghanistan and global inflation.

Food Packages for Winter

Afghanistan is a country of climatic extremes – while droughts destroy harvests in the summer months, the winters are icy cold – temperatures can go down to minus 30 degrees in the mountain regions, entire villages are cut off from the outside world by snow storms and lose their heating, access to resources or healthcare facilities. In refugee camps, where this infrastructure often does not exist in the first place, families have to fear for their survival in winter.

With Visions for Children, we have regularly carried out winter emergency reliefs for families in IDP camps in recent years – hundreds of families been reached through them. Our solidarity with the Afghan people is particularly crucial this year: after the Taliban took power last year, numerous NGOs withdrew from Afghanistan and international funds were frozen. All of this led to more than half of the Afghan population in acute need of humanitarian aid, 95% are suffering from hunger!

We are carrying out this year’s emergency relief with our local partner organization OASE, which is based in Mazar-e-Scharif.

Warm and safe learning – impossible at the Block Haye Hawayee school

Not only in IDP camps, do Afghans struggle in winter: at the Block Haye Hawayee school in Mazar-e-Sharif, over 800 students have to attend classes in corridors or tents due to a lack of space. In the cold winter temperatures, this leads to class cancellations or students having to study in icy temperatures: this degrades the quality of teaching, damages concentration, poses health risks and demotivates the students.

It is therefore extremely important to start the new construction project with our partner OASE now! With the achievement of the donation goal of this year’s emergency relief for the IDP camp, all further donations this year will therefore go to the Block Haye Hawayee School. This means that you can contribute to a new building with 12 more classrooms being built and students learning in safety and warmth in the future.