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Afghan regional crisis updated Fall 2002

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Afghanistan
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CRS
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Catholic Relief Services has been providing a wide variety of emergency aid to Afghan refugees in Pakistan and vulnerable persons within Afghanistan over the last year. Although life within Afghanistan is still fraught with danger, CRS' food distributions and its programs in school reconstruction and accelerated learning continue.
The agency continues to work within Pakistan as well where an estimated 1.8 million Afghan refugees remain. The agency is helping to provide water, sanitation, health hygiene education and food for tens of thousands of ethnic minorities still living in refugee camps unable to return to Afghanistan because of fear of persecution. Many aid organizations turned their attention to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban leaving these refugees without the help they needed to survive. The approaching winter presents a danger for them and CRS is preparing to provide the blankets and clothing that they will need to survive.

Catholic Relief Services Responds

To date, more than $7.2 million has been supplied for emergency needs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The funds have come from a variety of sources including CRS commitments, private donors, Caritas agencies and the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. Thanks to this support, CRS has reached hundreds of thousands of people in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In addition, CRS has a major fundraising initiative under way to help refugees in Pakistan and to help the Afghan people in post-war recovery in Afghanistan. The agency is now concentrating its efforts on longer-term projects in accelerated learning for out-of-school youth agriculture, water management and infrastructure reconstruction.

CRS will continue to work with local and international partners in both countries, as well as with a consortium of Caritas agencies to further relief efforts in the region. Activities to date include:

Afghanistan

CRS has begun implementing a youth education project north of Kabul.

CRS and its partners are distributing food and necessities to 21,000 internally displaced people (3,500 families) in Kandahar Province.

CRS and its partners are reconstructing schools for over 16,000 students (9,000 of whom are girls) and 700 teachers in Kabul city.

CRS and its partners are implementing a Return to Rural Livelihoods program in the Hirat and Kandahar Provinces. Participants in the program are helping to rebuild shelters and are participating in Cash-For-Work activities among other things.

CRS and the Youth and Children Development Program are implementing an accelerated learning program, for 2,000 children in the Parwan and Kapisa Provinces.

CRS worked with its partners to provide food and winter necessities to 320,000 people in war and drought affected areas of Afghanistan.

Pakistan

CRS is shipping $300,000 worth of tents, blankets, shawls, food and children's jackets from Peshawar to Kandahar in preparation for the winter.

CRS and its partners are providing water and sanitation facilities for 23,000 refugees in camps in Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP).

CRS and its local partners are training 485 women in basic health and hygiene in Peshawar.

CRS and its partners are providing storage for drinking water for 6,000 refugees in the Basu Camp in NWFP.

CRS and its partners provided food and winter necessities to 76,500 Afghan refugees (12,750 families) in Pakistan's NWFP and Balochistan.

CRS and its partners provided water and sanitation facilities to 23,000 people in three new refugee camps in NWFP. Together the organizations constructed 600 communal latrines, 3,400 family latrines, 3,500 washstands and water systems for two camps.

CRS and its partners provided drinking water to 6,000 refugees in camps in NWFP.

CRS and its local partners broadcast radio messages of peace and tolerance throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan in 14 languages.

Last year, CRS worked in conjunction with local partner Ockenden International to distribute food, clothing and art and educational materials to 3,184 Afghan refugee children in the Shamshatoo refugee camp and sponsored an art contest among the children. The artwork of the contest winners was selected for an exhibit in the Capital Children's Museum in Washington, D.C., which ran from late February to June.

Background

The people of Afghanistan are suffering from earthquakes, droughts, locusts and years of war. CRS continues to work with Caritas partners and, most recently, has been providing aid through local partners Coordination of Afghan Relief (CoAR), Afghan Relief Committee, Pak-CDP, The Guardians and others, and through international aid organizations to reach those most in need of help.

CRS has been assisting the people of Afghanistan for the last ten years and in 1997 briefly led the newly formed Caritas Organizations for Aid to Afghanistan (COFAA). CRS has been a contributing member ever since and this cooperative effort on the part of CRS, Caritas Germany, Caritas France and Caritas Denmark focuses on humanitarian assistance, health, education and infrastructure rehabilitation.

Afghanistan's neighbor, Pakistan, is also being challenged by multiple crises ranging from flooding to drought to sheltering Afghan refugees fleeing drought and war. CRS has been working in Pakistan for nearly 50 years. The agency began its work in Pakistan by providing emergency aid, but expanded its activities to include providing small-business loans to women in support of economic self-sufficiency, promoting education, and supporting conflict resolution initiatives aimed at promoting harmony between religious groups. Even during these uncertain times, all of CRS' regular work in Pakistan continues uninterrupted.

CRS works in more than 80 countries and territories around the world to promote peace and justice and remains committed to helping those in need wherever they may be regardless of creed. Realizing that the needs of those affected by the current crisis will continue for a long time to come, the agency intends to continue relief efforts and to contribute to long-term reconstruction efforts for as long as necessary.

Your support is needed.

Donations can also be made by calling:

1-800-736-3467
or by sending checks to:
P.O. Box 17090
Baltimore, Maryland 21203-7090.

Copyright=A92002 CRS