Cooperation with the United Nations – Further actions from donations
The international Christian relief organization Shelter Now, together with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), is providing food for nearly half a million people in Afghanistan this winter. Some 450,000 women, men and children in Herat province are receiving WFP relief supplies, according to German Shelter Now director Udo Stolte. According to estimates, 23 out of 39 million Afghans are acutely threatened by food shortages.
In Herat province, Shelter Now has been distributing food in cooperation with WFP for several years. The relief organization has committed to maintaining up to 13 distribution centers, explains the Shelter Now director. Ten teams review potential aid recipients who have been recommended by local communities as being in greatest need. In addition, Shelter Now is permanently prepared to provide emergency assistance to up to 2,500 families for the WFP in the event of natural disasters or conflicts, he said.
In addition, according to Stolte, Shelter Now intends to help several thousand more families from its own donations. He said a recent distribution drive for 5,600 hungry people was taking place in the capital, Kabul. About 800 households each received 50 kilos of flour, 10 liters of cooking oil, seven kilos of beans and 24 kilos of rice, as well as tea and sugar, among other items. Stolte emphasizes that the aid has particularly benefited the Chalou people, who live on the fringes of society in Afghanistan, completely impoverished. Donations amounting to around 75,000 euros were used for this purpose.
For another 19,000 euros, 200 families of widows who had fled from Punjir province, whose husbands were killed in the war and whose homes and belongings were destroyed, were provided for. Stolte announced that a relief operation for 500 families from the Hazara people in the community of Dasht-e-Barche in western Kabul would start soon. Accordingly, donations are still urgently needed for planned food relief to 1,000 households in the Kandahar region.
After the Taliban took power in the summer of 2021, prices for food and fuel rose significantly, the Shelter Now director reports. Flour, for example, had become one-third more expensive. A drought and the fighting before the change of power had also driven numerous internally displaced persons to Kabul. More than half of the capital province’s 6.7 million residents are in great need, exacerbated by cold, wet and snow, Stolte says.
Brunswick, March 4, 2022
Shelter Now is an international relief organization with a coordination office in Germany. It was active in Pakistan from 1983 to 2016. Work began in 1988 in Afghanistan and in 2014 in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). The name of the organization in Germany is “Shelter Now Germany e.V.”. Shelter Now finances its relief efforts to a large extent from private donations. Shelter Now’s efficient and project-related use of funds is certified by the German Central Institute for Social Issues (DZI) with the donation seal.