‘As always, it has been a busy month here at Flight from Plight as we continue our efforts to find appropriate second and third countries for those Afghans who have requested our help. We continue to fund some families that have found refuge in Pakistan whilst awaiting news on their visa applications to the United States, United Kingdom, and Spain amongst others.
Flight from Plight has now widened its remit and is also supporting a school in Kabul, Afghanistan for homeless boys and girls, aged between 5-12, usually orphans, who must work on the streets and beg to survive. This source of education and hope for these children was previously funded by the Afghan government before the Taliban takeover, and they did not continue funding the initiative…
The school equipment is used up and the school principal doesn’t have money to replace broken furniture and buy more chairs, desks, boards, and books. The school syllabus is secular. Due to the humanitarian crises, the number of the street begging/working and homeless children are increasing rapidly. New students are admitted to the school weekly since more and more parents can’t afford to send their children to public schools. The children that are fortunate enough to still have their parents are usually unable to feed themselves daily and are usually illiterate. As well as the education, the school also provides the children with one square meal a day. Therefore, we feel it is morally imperative to fund the school, at £200 a month, so that this incredibly important hub for the children is allowed to continue providing the vital services it does. Around 90% of Afghans are on level four – one step short of starvation. A lack of vitamins and nutrients at a young age can blunt youngsters’ intellectual development by some 25% - most of which cannot be regained later with a good diet.
If you can, please assist our efforts by donating, or sharing this with others. The money we raise helps Afghans get passports, apply for visas, fund schools to help those in hardship gain an education, as well as provide them with general financial support. We are assisting 16 asylum seekers in Pakistan and have helped another four to the Netherlands. We advise people in hiding from the Taliban what country schemes they may be eligible for and assist with their applications. We also guide people on how to claim asylum with the UNHCR.
We are also currently looking to recruit some interns to add to our team and assist us in our endeavours. This would involve researching visa programmes internationally and linking them up to families that would have the best chance of being successful in their application as well as other related jobs.
Flight From Plight has some impressive supporters and our Patron is Baroness Helena Kennedy of the Shaws. We also work with former senior military top brass retired in the UK and Europe incognito to help extract people targeted by the Taliban and with an internationally-known journalist with a long history of reporting on Afghanistan.
If you think this could be a role for you and would like more information, then please email Charlie.beckwith@flightfromplight.org in the first instance.’
