Afghanistan
Islamic Relief has been working in Afghanistan for more than 20 years, and set up an office there in 2001.
We have worked in 69 districts across the country, and in sectors as diverse as sustainable livelihood, women’s rights, disaster risk reduction and agriculture.
Early projects combined emergency relief with development, and included drought relief and food aid.
We worked in partnership with the UN World Food Programme on eight projects, including food distribution in Kandahar and a women’s bakery in Helmand province. Islamic Relief was one of the few aid agencies to continue working in Afghanistan during the military incursions, and our Kabul, Balkh, Jalalabad and Bamyan offices remain open today.
Many people live without access to basic services, including clean water and sanitation. We are currently running a number of projects designed to combat this. We help rehabilitate drug users, encourage children to attend school by supplying them with food, and provide home-based education to girls and women who were unable to go to school. We also run a supplementary feeding programme for children and pregnant women.
Access to safe water for internally-displaced people and cave dwellers is another focus of our work in Afghanistan, as well as shelter improvement for families living in caves and for landslide-affected families.
Islamic Relief supports orphans with education, nutrition and health. Our sponsorship programme runs in Kabul, Nangarhar, Bamyan and Balkh provinces.