High rents may close Kabul “nest” for street kids
High rents may close Kabul “nest” for street kids
(Reuters)
2 May 2005
KABUL - Engineer Mohammad Yousuf managed to keep his charity for Kabul’s street children running during Afghanistan’s bloody civil war and throughout the draconian rule of the Taleban in the 1990s.
But three-and-a-half years after the Taleban’s overthrow by U.S.-led forces, the future of Aschiana, or “the nest”, is in limbo due to soaring rents that have accompanied Kabul’s post-war dollar-fuelled boom.
Aschiana provides food, education and vocational training for about 1,000 street children and some of their parents and has been a vital source of hope for some of Afghanistan’s most needy.
All this is at risk because the new owner of the three-acre (1.2 hectare) plot on which the charity’s main centre is located plans to use the site to put up a posh hotel in a city now marching to the tune of free-market economics.
A sharp rise in property prices since late 2001 means the plot is now valued at about $5 million.
Yousuf has been paying $1,500 a month in rent and has been told to leave.
“We cannot afford rents like $9,000 or $10,000 a month that you have to pay now in the centre of Kabul,” he said.
This would be more than Aschiana’s $100,000 annual budget for all its centres, including those in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and in Parwan province.
“With the rising house rents, it is difficult for us to continue,” Yousuf said. “I have informed the donors. I have also written to the government, but have not heard from them.”
Terre des Hommes, a Swiss-based aid group involved in Aschiana’s project, says the current donors lack the budget to pay higher rents at a new location.
“Aschiana and TDH are calling on the Afghan government and the international community to support a new ’nest’ for Aschiana,” said TDH’s Andreas Herbst.
Traumas of war
Kabul has an estimated 50-60,000 street children, who eke out an existence scavenging through rubbish, polishing shoes, washing cars, hawking goods or simply stretching out their hands for cash or food.
Many lost one or both parents in Afghanistan’s three decades of war, which killed an estimated 50,000 people in Kabul alone, and have suffered acute psychological trauma.
About 12,000 have benefited from Aschiana’s work over the years.
Children from the age of eight to 18 attend classes teaching basic literacy, vocational skills and sports for half a day and then spend the rest doing their usual street work.
At the centre, paintings by Aschiana’s children hang in the stairway leading to the second floor of the building, depicting Afghanistan’s tragic recent past, its natural beauty and culture, as well as it leaders.
But dust has started accumulating on musical instruments in one of the rooms where children have been taught music, and the sports yard is deserted, while workers examine the building to work out which part to pull down first to make way for the hotel.
Yousuf kept the centre open throughout the Taleban’s rule, when women were barred from education and most work, even though he was beaten and imprisoned by them three times.
“It would be a misfortune if the centre has to close,” he said. “It is very frustrating for me getting up in the morning and trying to think how to keep the project going.
“The civil war and Taleban time were not so hard because we had a lot of attention then from donors,” Yousuf said.
“I am not insisting that I or Aschiana need to look after these street children, but we have to find a way out to save these young children from a possibly gloomy future.”
