Mohammad, like thousands of other farming families living across Afghanistan, relies entirely on natural resources to meet his daily needs. “I live in a small village in the mountains with my wife, Fatima, our children, and my father. We live a simple life, but things are not easy. Every year, families struggle to grow enough food to feed their children... We work hard but it is difficult to make ends meet. During the winter the land is covered in snow, it is very cold and we often go hungry.”

Families like Mohammad’s are amongst the most vulnerable people in the world to natural disasters, extreme weather and the changing climate. Harsh winters, severe droughts and flash-floods are having devastating effects on an already degraded resource base.

Please make a donation today, support these families and #FeedTheFuture

These farmers will not give up

With our support, they're finding innovative ways to overcome these challenges, and adapt to an ever-changing and unpredictable world. "Since Afghanaid started working with us, our lives have really improved." Find out how you can help.

One way Mohammad is reducing his vulnerability is by diversifying what his family grows and introducing simple but effective ways to get through the extreme weather that now inevitably comes with each season.

  

"Afghanaid distributed improved wheat seed, as well as seeds for animal fodder, and ran training courses to teach us how to grow and look after these crops. They distributed concentrated animal food to give pregnant livestock the nutrition they need. They taught us modern techniques in agriculture and irrigation, and provided us with new tools to use.

Thanks to Afghanaid, all of our crops are now yielding much more. We are now doing much better, but villages around us need assistance like this.

My animals are already healthier, my sheep and donkeys are stronger, and my cow is producing more milk than ever before and has recently had a calf. This year’s harvest was really successful, which will enable me to feed my animals for the whole of the winter." 

By getting the opportunity to learn new skills, Mohammad is able to provide his family with better nutrition and, ultimately, a brighter future.

You can give hope to someone like Mohammad, who may otherwise have been forgotten.

Donate today and #Feedthefuture

Supporting families, all year round

Thanks to the ongoing kindness of our wonderful community of supporters, Afghanaid has been able to help people like Mohammad all year round, whatever the weather. In the last two years, we've supported 78,000 farming families just like Mohammad's

Our team has also helped Mohammad’s village to connect to markets, recover from spring flash-floods, and establish a food bank in which they pool spare food, blankets and wood, which they were able to use earlier this year to help a family get back on their feet following last year’s drought.

"In the past, we also faced big problems because we were cut off from other areas. We did not have a road to connect us to markets or health clinic, so we had to go by foot or by donkey over the mountains, which took us 5-6 hours each way.

Afghanaid supported us to build a road to connect us to the district centre. Now it’s much faster and easier to take our produce to market and bring goods home. We weave blankets from our sheeps’ wool to sell at the market, along with wheat and meat, and families in the community pool together to hire a truck to transport our goods.

The road also means we can get to the clinic if someone’s sick or injured, or if a woman is going into labour. Afghanaid has also taught us how to better recognise health issues and when to get assistance. As a result, general health in our community is improving and children are growing up stronger."

The need is stronger than ever

2019 continued to be an incredibly challenging year for Afghan families, as people demonstrated intense determination and resilience to recover from the previous year’s drought and the unusually harsh winter, sadly the conflict intensified, thousands more civilians lost their lives – more than those killed in the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts combined – and tens of thousands more were forced to flee their homes in search of safety.

"We are all so grateful for this help - my family is now much healthier and, thanks to Afghanaid, we can now afford to buy the clothes and notebooks my children need to attend school. This means all of my children, the boys and the girls, can continue to learn and finish school, and I’m sure that will give them more opportunities than their mother and I had. Thank you Afghanaid."

Together we have already achieved a lot, and our plans for next year are bigger than ever.

We're asking for you to give a helping hand to more vulnerable families like Mohammad's, so together we can #FeedTheFuture and help vulnerable families in Afghanistan.