Additional information
1. Afghanistan – Maps, facts and stats
2. Case studies – Habibe, Mir and Khohargol
Afghanistan
Facts and stats
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1
Population: 28.4 million (July 2009 est.)
Land mass: land-locked Afghanistan is about 2.5 times bigger than the UK, being
647,500 km squared.
Population below poverty line: 53%1
Population not meeting daily food needs: 40%2
Maternal mortality: 9 out of every 500 women; the second highest in the world
(UK = 2 of every 25,000)3. Every 30 minutes an Afghan woman dies in childbirth.
Children dying before age 5: one in four4
Life expectancy at birth: 44 years (11th lowest in world; UK 79 years)
Literacy: less than 13% of women are literate; only 28% of the whole population is
literate
CIA World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html
DFID, 2007 http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Where-we-work/Asia-South/Afghanistan/Key-facts/
3
UNICEF 2008.
4
UNICEF 2008.
2
CASE STUDIES (1)
Christian Aid/Tabitha Ross
Habibe Nurzei, 6
Habibe’s name means ‘dear one’.
Habibe lives in a mud hut with one big room and one small room. She lives with her grandfather,
mother, father, five sisters and two brothers.
Habibe helps her mother to look after the goats. She doesn’t know how to milk them yet but she
holds their heads while her mother milks them. There’s a white goat that always kicks her so she
doesn’t like him much! She also helps out at home.
Habibe likes playing hide and seek. Sometimes she plays where everyone hides and she has to find
them. Other times just one person hides and everyone else looks for him and when you find him
you hide with him until only one person is left looking.
Habibe’s family used to live a nomadic life. This means they didn’t have a home in one place;
instead they moved around with their goats to find pasture for them. They had only a black tent as
their home which their animals also lived in. When it rained the water would come through the walls.
When they cooked, the gas made the tent smell. The children were often ill living that lifestyle. One
year they lost all their animals in a drought and so there was no need to carry on moving and they
decided to settle in Baz Girha.
Christian Aid’s partner RAADA gave Habibe’s family six goats as they had lost theirs in the drought.
These have produced milk, wool and baby goats. They use the wool to sell or make into rugs to sell.
RAADA also set up a wind-powered well in Baz Girha and this means that it is much easier for
Habibe’s family to water all their goats as they don’t have to spend ages battling through the wind
and pumping up the water themselves before taking it out to the goats.
RAADA also helped to set up a processing centre, and taught Habibe’s mother and others to make
cheese and butter and yoghurt from the goats’ milk, which they can sell for money or use
themselves.
Habibe’s family lives on naan bread, milk, yoghurt, cheese, black and green tea, and rice.
CASE STUDIES (2)
Christian Aid/Tabitha Ross
Mir Agha Mishmast, 9
Mir has a mother and six brothers and sisters. His father was killed a few years ago. His oldest
brother lives with his aunt in the largest town in their province, so that he can go to school.
When his family lost all their 22 goats RAADA gave them six goats. The six goats had six kids, and
in the second year they had six more. Now they have 18 goats. Mir helps look after the goats and
collect wood for the fire. He hasn’t yet learnt how to milk. He also has to collect up the animal dung
to dry out and burn on the fire, which he doesn’t like doing very much!
Mir likes to play marbles with the joints from the sheep’s knees when they have died! Whoever rolls
their marble closest to the stone wins. You can hit other people’s marbles out of the way to do it.
He plays with the other children from the village, and his brothers and sisters.
Mir says that his favourite season is spring – it’s not too hot and not too cold. In summer it’s too
windy and the sand gets in your eyes all the time. And in winter, when the snow first comes it’s fun
to play in, but when it’s been there for days and weeks they get cold collecting the firewood.
During the last winter RAADA helped Mir and his family. The desert was covered in snow and the
way to the town was blocked. They could not collect new brushwood for the fire and to heat their
shelter they had to start burning old carpets. They had not seen anyone for weeks and were
running out of fuel to keep warm, and had run out of food to eat, when RAADA got through in a big
truck. They gave them two blankets, two packs of wheat, two packs of rice, two cans of oil, and tea,
and sugar. They met their most urgent needs.
CASE STUDIES (3)
Christian Aid/Tabitha Ross
Khohargol Sultani, 10
‘Khohar’ means sister and ‘gol’ means flower. Together this means ‘sister of the flowers’.
Khohargol is the youngest in her family. She has a mother and father, four brothers and three
sisters.
Her favourite vegetables are carrots. They used to just eat potatoes, bread, rice, milk and yoghurt.
Then one of Christian Aid’s partners, STARS, helped her family get a kitchen garden started. They
gave them vegetable seeds and taught them how to plant and care for them. Now they have onions,
carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, aubergines and green peppers. She and her brothers and
sisters have been much healthier since having so many vegetables to eat.
Khohargol helps out in the kitchen garden, and in the house. She weeds the garden, pulling up the
extra grasses that steal water from the plants, and waters it. She also helps to pick the vegetables
for lunch or supper.
Khohargol goes to school. It’s in another part of the village but not far away. They study under the
trees at the edge of the field, in the shade, with the blackboard propped against a tree. There’s one
tent where some of the classes take place but it gets quite hot.
Khohargol would like to continue to stay at school all the way to the 12th class. Her family support
her to do this and encourage her. She would like to go to university and become a doctor so that
she can treat people and make them better. Her teachers say she is very clever.
She usually spends her spare time doing her homework, but sometimes they do something called
‘tarana’ – singing poetry.