Swedish Committee for Afghanistan
Newsletter Vol. 8 No. 1 June 2002
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan Newsletter (SCA) is published by the Information Unit of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan in Peshawar, Pakistan.
The aim is to provide SCA staff and others interested in news and information about the activities of the SCA. The newsletter will be issued on an occasional basis when there is enough news for a new issue.
Inside this issue:
The SCA will construct 1,415 wells, 10 schools and 6 clinics and rehabilitate 12 clinics during 2002
Deputy prime minister of Sweden Lena Hjelm-Wallen new chairperson of SCA.
SCA has opened a female teachers training centre.
SCA aid to earthquake victims in Nahrin district in Baghlan.
SCA supports 18 high schools with 3,400 students, 800 of them girls, in 16 provinces.
SCA supported 4,000 students (2,800 girls) in winter courses.
SCA has vaccinated 750,000 children against Polio.
SCA sent over 480,000 schoolbooks to SCA supported schools in Afghanistan.
SCA anti-measles campaign to reduce highest mortality rate.
SCA transport 1,800 Tonnes of Cement for SCA constructions
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The SCA will construct 1,415 wells, 10 schools and 6 clinics and rehabilitate 12 clinics during 2002
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) Rural Engineering Unit will construct 1,415 shallow wells in villages in 8 provinces in northern, eastern, and south-eastern Afghanistan during 2002.
The SCA will also construct 10 schools and 6 clinics and rehabilitate another 12 clinics in eastern and northern Afghanistan.
In connection with the construction of the wells, the villagers will be given health education by male and female community health workers from nearby SCA supported clinics.
"The community health workers teach the villagers how to handle and store the water they fetch from the wells. They are also given information about waterborne diseases, how they are spread and how to avoid them. It is very important to train the local communities so that the water we provide through the wells is safe for drinking", says engineer Abdullah Aini, head of the SCA Rural Engineering Unit in Peshawar.
Within its water and sanitation programme, SCA has previously constructed more than 9,000 village wells in Afghanistan. In addition to its ordinary programme, the SCA Rural Engineering Unit will, in 2002, deepen some 1,000 dry wells affected by the drought in an emergency project in areas under SCA coverage in Afghanistan.
The clinics will be constructed in the 8 province of Parwan, in eastern Afghanistan, Takhar, Kunduz, Badakshan and Baghlan, in northern Afghanistan, and Ghazni, Wardak and Paktika, in south-eastern Afghanistan.
The schools will be constructed in the 10 provinces of Parwan, Kabul, Kunar and Laghman, in eastern Afghanistan, Kunduz and Samangan, in northern Afghanistan, and Wardak, Ghazni, Logar and Paktika, in south-eastern Afghanistan.
Four of the new schools are financed by funds from the Dutch government and six by funds from the Swedish government aid agency Forum Syd. The wells to be constructed are for its most part financed by Forum Syd. 35 wells are financed by money donated by the staff club at the Swedish company Atlas Copco in Sweden, from the fundraising campaign "Water 4 All". The deepening of wells and the construction of clinics are financed by emergency funds from the Swedish Government agency SIDA.
Swedish Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden Lena Hjelm-Wallén new chairperson of Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA)
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) has elected the Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, Lena Hjelm-Wallén as new SCA chairperson. Lena Hjelm-Wallén was elected for a two-year period at the SCA Annual Meeting on Saturday May 4.
Lena Hjelm-Wallén has a long-time personal involvement with NGO work and a deep personal interest in development issues. She has previously been Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as Minister of Development. Also as a private citizen Lena Hjelm-Wallén has had a long-standing interest in Afghanistan and its development.
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan has opened a Female Teachers Training Centre
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) has opened a Female Teachers Training Centre, in Peshawar, for SCA female teachers in Afghanistan.
The female teachers, who teach girls at SCA schools in the rural areas of Afghanistan, attend one-month intense courses in competence of teaching, primarily in pedagogy, but also subject knowledge.
The location of the Female Teachers Training Centre in Peshawar, Pakistan was planned for and opened outside Afghanistan because of the limited opportunities for female teachers to receive training in Afghanistan due to the Taliban policies and edicts restricting women?s freedoms in employment, association and mobility. In the present situation in Afghanistan, the SCA is investigating if the donor would accept a move of the Female Training Centre to Afghanistan.
Also SCA female health staff from the SCA clinics in Afghanistan is given the opportunity to attend health courses at the Female Teachers Training Centre at times when there are no ongoing female teachers training courses at the centre.
The SCA covers all the costs for the trainees, including travel costs to and from the home area in Afghanistan and food and lodging at the SCA hostel attached to the Centre. Also the travel expenses as well as the food and lodging for a accompanying male relative are taken care of by the SCA.
The Female Teachers Training Centre is for its first 2 years financed by a World Bank grant of US$ 300 000.
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) aid to earthquake victims in Nahrin district in Baghlan
Immediately after the first earthquake struck Nahrin district (Baghlan Province, North Afghanistan) on March 25, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) sent a health emergency response team with 5 Afghan SCA medical doctors (including an Afghan female doctor) to the affected area. The objective of the team was to enhance the capacity of the anticipated increase of patients at the existing SCA clinic in Nahrin district centre.
The SCA clinic in Nahrin centre treated 360 injured during the first 24 hours after the earthquake and a total of some 1,300 victims throughout the first week. SCA health staff was on-call around the clock during the post-earthquake crises weeks.
Departing from the SCA Regional Office in Pul-e Khumri, the team brought with them tents, beds, emergency drugs, dressing kits and essential medical tools. Due to the partial collapse of the existing clinic building, the health activities were conducted in six tents on the clinic compound.
The assistance at the SCA clinic in Nahrin centre was implemented in coordination with mobile teams from MSF, Merlin, UNICEF, ARCS, MoPH/WHO and HUMEDICA doing outreach and referral. Less seriously injured were treated by SCA, while primarily MSF and MoPH/WHO took care of the more severe cases in need of surgical care etc. Urgent cases were referred to hospitals in Pul-e Khumri and Kabul by ambulances and helicopters.
SCA also enhanced its clinic in the Burka district (Baghlan province), to assist the earthquake victims there as well.
"How many people who were killed and injured by the earthquakes in Nahrin is difficult to say. A lot of different figures circulate. The number of deaths is probably not more than 1,000, while the number of injured could be up to 10,000", says Andreas Stefansson, SCA Regional Director in Northern Afghanistan.
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) has started to support 18 high schools with 3,400 students, 800 of them girls, in 16 provinces in Afghanistan
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) has begun to support 18 high schools (up to grade 12) with 3,400 students, 800 of them girls in Afghanistan. The schools are located in 16 provinces in northern, central, eastern and southeastern Afghanistan.
The SCA supported high schools are located within the same premises as SCA supported primary schools. This gives the students of the SCA primary schools the possibility to continue their studies after the primary level up to pre-university level. The school buildings are in pre-war locations where Afghan Government schools existed before the war started 23 years ago.
The support from SCA includes salary support for the teachers as well as textbooks, laboratory equipment and materials needed for the students in the high schools.
The high schools are located in the provinces of Baghlan, Samangan, Takhar, Kunduz, Badakshan, Wardak, Logar, Paktika, Paktia, Khost, Ghazni, Bamiyan, Kapisa, Parwan, Kunar and Laghman
SCA supported 4,000 students (2,800 girls) in winter preparatory courses in Kabul
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) supported 4,000 students (2,800 of them girls) studying in three-month winter preparatory courses in six schools in Kabul. The courses prepared the girls and boys for the opening of the schools in Kabul after the Afghan New Year (Nawroz) in the end of March.
The courses gave especially the girls a chance to re-enter school after the five-year official closure of the girls? schools in Kabul. Many of the girls secretly studied with their female teachers in their homes, but they needed to fresh up their knowledge after the years of no formal education. The lifting of the ban on women working as teachers in Kabul also gave many boys the chance to go to school. Approximately 70 percent of the teachers in Kabul were women before the Taliban captured Kabul.
The pupils were, after the preparatory course, tested and then entered the classes they were qualified for. Among the girls students, there were quite a few in their 20s who wanted to get the education they were denied for half a decade.
The SCA supported preparatory courses were conducted in schools located in the Kabul districts of Chelsetoon, Bagrami, Bibi Mahrooh, Rahman Mena, Karte Sakhi, and Mikrorayon 3.
SCA supported the courses with teachers? salaries, schoolbooks, stationary, floor mats, stoves and firewood for the ice-cold classrooms and some office furniture. The female teachers at the courses now received salaries for the first time in five years through the SCA.
The courses were paid for by SCA emergency funds from the Swedish Government aid agency SIDA.
SCA has vaccinated 750,000 children against Polio
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) health Unit has finished its National Immunisation day (NID)?s coverage in four provinces in eastern and northern Afghanistan, where SCA is responsible for the Polio vaccinations.
In this first round of NID, 16th ? 18th of April, in the provinces of Takhar, Kundus, Paktia, Khost 753,871 children under the age of 5 were vaccinated against Polio. Among them the total numbers of girls were 376,427 and rest were boys.
Of the 753,871 children were vaccinated, the total number of girls were 376,427 and the rest were boys.
In the above mentioned provinces, all the vaccinated children were also given Vitamin A capsules.
Afghanistan is one of the last countries of the world where the Polio disease still exists.
SCA sent over 480 000 schoolbooks to SCA supported schools in Afghanistan
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) sent, during the first half of April, over 480 000 schoolbooks and two million notebooks for SCA supported primary schools in 18 provinces in Afghanistan. The school material, transported from Peshawar in Pakistan, also included all sorts of stationary such as pens, chalks, and blackboards for the schools.
To transport the 240 metric tonnes of school material, 12 trucks were used from Peshawar to the SCA regional offices in Kabul, Ghazni, and Pul-e Khumri in Afghanistan. From there it was transported by SCA vehicles to the SCA supported schools in the rural areas.
The school material was transported to the SCA regional offices by trucks rented by the NGO Atlas Logistics, who helps other NGOs by transporting for free essential material for aid and development in Afghanistan.
The schoolbooks are for the SCA education programme supporting 487 primary schools (grade 1-6) with some 200 000 students, taught by 5,624 teachers in 18 provinces in Afghanistan. Almost 40,000 of them are girl students (23%).
SCA anti-measles campaign to reduce highest mortality rate
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA)?s health workers and vaccinators, with financial and technical support by WHO, started a vaccination campaign against measles in the whole SCA coverage area, in the eastern, south-eastern and northern provinces of Afghanistan.
They have finished their campaign of anti measles vaccination in the Khost and Paktia provinces in which children at the age of 6 months up to 12 years were vaccinated.
This is a very important campaign to reduce the mortality rate, because measles has the highest mortality rate among the vaccinable diseases.
It is also very important to mention that 20% of the Afghan population consist of children under 5 years, and 35% of the population are up to 10 years old.
SCA transports 1,800 tonnes of cement for SCA constructions
The SCA has sent 800 metric tonnes of cement, 16,000 jute bags, by trucks from Peshawar in Pakistan to Afghanistan during April and May. Another 500 metric tonnes of cement has been purchased by the SCA from the cement factory in Pul-e Khumri in the Baghlan province.
The cement will be used for the construction of wells by the SCA Rural Engineering unit and is a part of the SCA water and sanitation program in Afghanistan.
For more information please contact the SCA Information unit.
SCA Address in Peshawar:
24 / D, Chinar Road, University Town, P.O. Box 689
Peshawar-Pakistan
Tel: 092-091 - 840257, 111 114 114
Fax: 092-091-840519
E-mail: infosca@brain.net.pk
Contribute to the SCA aid and development Programmes
For much needed financial contributions to the aid and development programmes of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, please make a contribution to the following account name:
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan Information Unit.
Account Number: 113-15-6038-7001
Bank: Standard Chartered Grindlays Bank Ltd, Peshawar Branch
Contributions can also be paid on-line through the website of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan: http://www.sak.a.se and click on the English flag. You will be redirected to the page where you just follow the instructions.