Summer Aid Distribution Mission Findings
The founder of the Kalaam Project, went on an Aid Distribution Mission to Afghanistan on behalf of the Kalaam Project in the summer of 2024. These are her findings:
On August 12th, 2024, I landed in Kabul International Airport, excited to begin distributing aid from Kalaam’s Summer Distribution Campaign to families facing food insecurity. Initially, I thought this distribution mission would feel like a rewarding experience. I was excited to help people, believing that our efforts would promote long term change in people’s lives. I was not prepared for what was to come — I don’t think anyone could have been.
I was thirteen years old the last time I had visited Afghanistan. Visiting now, as an adult, I noticed a couple things instantly:
Hamid kaka, the elderly blind man at the airport who put my aunt’s fifty-five pound bag on his back, must have been older than my grandpa. On the car ride to my apartment, the man we passed selling rotten bananas in a wagon, sitting at the curb with his head in his hands. The woman sitting in the middle of the road with her child, her gaze cast downwards with her hand held in the air.
I’m back in Chicago now, but their faces still keep me up at night. I wonder who Hamid kaka takes care of, and who takes care of him when he goes home? And what does home look like for him? Who remains hungry in his household so that another person can eat? I think about the man selling rotten bananas, head in his hands, understanding no one will buy them. What does a person do in a situation like that?
Aid Distributions
We began distributing aid on foot the very next day. We walked through the streets of Khair Khana, Lab e Jar, and Taimani Project. For the most part, people in Afghanistan prefer to be given financial aid, rather than in the form of food packages where the money is spent on what we deem their needs are. For instance, some families face food insecurity because money is being spent on the medical treatment of a loved one. By giving individuals monetary aid instead, it allows them to fulfill whatever need they may have.
It is important to remember that you do not understand the number of struggles that families in Afghanistan face. You cannot understand it, you have not lived it, and just because you are providing them with aid, does not mean you are entitled to determine exactly what those funds should be used for. There are levels of dignity and respect to maintain, especially when doing humanitarian aid work. The people of Afghanistan are a resistant people who have survived through decades of war and famine. They are more resilient and stronger than you and I could ever be. They do not need us. They do not need the Kalaam Project, but we need them.
In Khair Khana, we came across two siblings collecting plastic bottles and metal cans from litter on the street. In Afghanistan, you can tell when a person is in need by looking at their footwear. Both siblings were wearing slippers that were worn and ripped, there was a tear in the little girl’s clothing and scarf. They had been working since Fajr, early morning, and the call for Asr prayer had just sounded. We gave both siblings 500 Afghanis each, and our Kalaam Team member told them not to lose it. The little girl smiles, excited, and told us she wouldn’t lose it. And they both ran off skipping and giggling in excitement. A reminder that children are still children, even when the weight of providing for their families is on their shoulders.
The “Humanitarian Crisis”
The term “humanitarian crisis” is a rather undermining phrase to describe the decades of suffering the people of Afghanistan have endured. There is a stark contrast between living, and surviving. Generations of families have resorted to desperate measures to survive, resulting in a heightened amount of fatalities. Fatalities that are not reported, or even kept count of. But since the Taliban came to power in August of 2021, international humanitarian aid has stopped completely. Sanctions imposed by the US and EU have frozen Afghanistan’s assets and cut off the country from much-needed aid and financial resources. The cutoff of foreign aid, which constituted about 75% of the government’s budget before 2021, has led to unemployment, inflation, food shortage, and scarcity of basic goods.
I think what many people fail to understand is that humanitarian crises are systemic. While living in Afghanistan, the electricity in my apartment complex would go out at 8 AM, and turn back on at 10 PM, because there is not enough power in the country. Running water in homes and water wells run on electricity, so for 14 hours a day, the people in my neighborhood did not have access to electricity or running water. In this time period, if you are fortunate enough to own a refrigerator and excess food, the food will go bad. For the most part, stoves are not electric, and run on gasoline instead. The fastest internet available in Afghanistan is 3GB, and is bought separately. Internet is bought depending on minute usage. This is why you don’t see a lot of footage coming out of Afghanistan on the reality of what the war and famine has been like. Depending on the area you are located in, clinics and hospitals are not easily accessible. In my last week in Afghanistan, I stayed in Kotal, Kabul, an area located in the Hindu Kush mountain range, and fell ill. The nearest clinic was over an hour away by car, if you own one. Going to a hospital or clinic in Afghanistan can be difficult, especially if you don’t own a car or cannot afford cab fare. And if you can, you may not be able to afford the medication prescribed.
It is a common practice in Afghanistan, for people to walk through street malls and bazaars with their prescription in hand, in need of money to get the treatment they need. We came across the sweetest woman in Lisey Mariam, a street mall in Kabul, who had gotten eye surgery. She ran out of eye drops and was walking through Lisey Mariam in need of funds to purchase another bottle of eye drops.
After giving her 3000 Afghanis, she kissed the top of my head and told me that her heart was making dua. The people of Afghanistan are beautiful. The genuinity that pours from their hearts and hands, despite their constant struggles, is incredible, and a testament to the beauty in their Islamic faith. I can only pray that my heart and hands will one day be just as pure as theirs.
Everyday was spent distributing aid on foot in the many corners of Kabul. Walking down the street, there are many shoe cobblers, an occupation that no longer exists in the better parts of the world. In Afghanistan, everyone “works.” But “working” in Afghanistan has a completely different connotation than what the term indicates in the West. In Afghanistan, “working” does not indicate promised, long term, stable income. It means you are trying. Trying to make one end meet the other, if that is even possible. Employers are not offering jobs, hence the lack of employment. People attempt to earn a living in other ways; by selling flowers, plastic bags, masks, bottled water, juice, cups of pomegranate, anything they can get their hands on. And no one is exempt from “working,” kids of all ages are the providers in their families. Their parents, usually, have either passed away, are ill, or disabled. The elderly work until their bones ache at the end of thirty six hour days, in mines, or under the sun pushing wagons of heavy items for people.
In my time distributing aid, I met many orphans. Some on the streets, but many in the homes of their uncles, aunts, or grandparents. Household sizes are large in Afghanistan, and the culture and religion encourages taking in orphans and caring for them in your own home. It was a beautiful sight to hold, how orphans in Afghanistan still have loved ones to look up to. But the lack of stable income in homes still makes surviving difficult. Families cannot afford to feed their own children, and will still take in orphans to care for as well, this often times places even more of a strain in homes.
I often get asked, how do you choose who to give aid to? To which I answer, it is no longer a matter of choosing who needs help; everyone does. Prices of goods have skyrocketed in an effort for vendors and shop owners to gain a profit and provide a living for their loved ones. To lower prices, the Taliban have placed an income limit on employers in the country. No individual is permitted to earn more than 15,000 Afghanis ($200 USD) a month. As a result, prices are forced to lower in the country to make goods slightly “affordable.”
Living With Disability in Afghanistan
While distributing aid, I met many amputees; Afghan men, women, and children who have lost their limbs to war and disease. Many are in need long term aid because in a country like Afghanistan, there is absolutely no opportunity to gain employment as someone who is disabled. This makes it difficult to access the long term medical care they need. For instance, materials like gauze wraps and alcohol are needed to keep wounds clean. But funds are needed to purchase materials needed to prevent infections and sepsis. And with the worsening humanitarian crisis and lack of employment opportunities, it is extremely difficult for amputees to avoid infection from their wounds.
I spoke with Mateen, a diabetic who had his leg amputated as a result of infection. He told me that when he was having his leg amputated, he had to decide whether to die with both legs from infection, or to have his leg amputated and die from sepsis later. Mateen explained that despite the difficult decision, he was grateful that he was given the choice to make. He explained that many cannot afford the cost of an amputation, but he could. And even though he now uses the charity given to him to provide food for his family, instead of buying materials like gauze wraps to keep his wound clean, he is grateful knowing that he will die providing for his family.
This is Sadiq, he lost both his legs in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan in 2018. He sits on a makeshift board with two wheels under, and pushes himself through the streets of Kabul. Donations from our Summer Distribution Campaign were given to him.
Resilience of Afghan Women
Western media and white women like Meryl Streep are profiting off of villainizing Islam and promoting white feminism. Not a single media outlet is discussing the humanitarian crisis that has worsened in Afghanistan, as a result of the sanctions that have been imposed by the US, EU, and other financial institutions. Rather, they are profiting off of pushing the narrative that “cats, squirrels, and birds have more rights than women in Kabul.” There are many things wrong with this statement. The first, being that this statement does not indicate that the women of Afghanistan are resilient. Afghan women are being painted as pitiful beings that need rescuing from white women like Meryl Streep. And the truth is, they do not. What needs to be remembered, is that US troops withdrew from Afghanistan in a disastrous and unorganized way, handing the country over to the Taliban regime. Then imposed sanctions and froze Afghanistan’s assets, resulting in a worsened humanitarian crisis, directly affecting the lives of innocent Afghan men, women, and children. The United States and the European Union, are responsible for the fatalities and famine that have continued to go unreported, as a result of the sanctions. And the fatalities and famine are unreported, because the world is distracted by Western media’s constant portrayal of Afghan women as helpless beings. And we are buying the narrative, selling the narrative when we share baseless headlines, and contributing to the blind eye that the world has turned to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
As diaspora, as people who have adopted Western culture and intertwined it as our own, it is important to put our own views aside and listen to understand the people of Afghanistan. It is also important to remember, that the people of Afghanistan do not need saving.
In my time in Afghanistan, public parks were closed to women, with the exception of some parks that do allow women entry in the mornings and early afternoons. Gulayee Park, located in Khair Khana, Kabul, was a park my aunt and I would frequent. In the last weeks of September, the Taliban banned women from Gulayee Park as well. A couple days after the ban, my cousins and I waited at the entrance along with other groups of women. We were waiting for the call to prayer to sound so that the Talib militants at the gates could leave and go to the mosque. And when the call to prayer went off, the Talib militants left, and we went inside. Groups of women giggled as we passed through the gates, outsmarting the Taliban once again.
I hope that when you think of women in Afghanistan, you think of the women who wait for the call to prayer to sneak into public parks. I hope you think of resilient Afghan women and girls alike outsmarting the Taliban. I hope you think of resilience, and remember that the people of Afghanistan do not need saving. But you and I do. And it is the people who have survived decades of war and famine, that ultimately save us.
I urge you to listen to the people in Afghanistan, to their stories, to their methods of survival, and to their resistance. Do not look at the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and consider it to be normal. Remain in shock, remain disturbed. The man selling rotten bananas on the street should keep you up at night. The woman with her child in the intersection, with her gaze cast downwards and her hands held high to Allah, should keep you up at night. Mateen kaka, for saying shukr (thank you to God) that he was given the choice to amputate his leg. Mateen kaka, who is grateful that he will die knowing he provided for his family despite his own needs. This should keep you up at night. Our comfort should always be taken advantage of, not to save them, but to save ourselves.
