Help Afghan Boys Trade Guns for Books

Giving Tuesday is coming up on 28 November and GlobalGiving is giving away $1.2 million in bonus funds!!

The more money we raise that day through donations to our projects, the greater our share of the bonus funds.

Can you help us by donating on Tuesday 28^th November? 

AIL has a research center which is undertaking an analysis of the factors underlying, perpetuating and preventing addiction in Herat Province. Addiction is a severe problem in Afghanistan and many of those affected are men and male youth, most are poor with few skills which hinders them from getting work.

The analysis included 623 sub-codes, which ultimately led to the extraction of three main themes (founding factors, perpetuating factors and factors preventing addiction) and more than 40 sub-themes (individual, family, socio-cultural, environmental factors) - Geographical, the deterrent role of the government, the protective role of the family and dozens of other sub-themes were extracted and more than a 100 sub-themes were included in the data analysis. The final report and suggested actions to tackle the problem is still being compiled.

AIL’s programming includes men and boys and 4,254 males attended Learning Center classes, males account for approximately 30% of attendees at clinics. AIL runs a special Youth Club for 50 young males which helps develop their knowledge, leadership, advocacy and management. Meraj Academy on TV Meraj reaches male students as well as female, as does programming on the TV and radio stations.

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So far in 2023, there have been 2,869 males attending AIL Learning Center classes, out of a total student population at centers of 8,248.  AIL has always provided services to men and boys though its primary focus has been the empowerment of women and girls.  The males attend a variety of classes at centers from math, computing, English to Arabic, literacy and physics.   Marketable skills such as computing and English lead to jobs for these young men. At the orphanage which AIL supports, all the boys are taught gardening and agricultural skills to give them a job- related skill.

The computing classes remain very popular with both girls and boys with 191 male students. One student said, “I knew very little about computers before this class. I had all sorts of computing problems. Now I know excel, word and other software and I have an understanding of the hardware. This skill will help me get a job.”

AIL’s Youth Club has 50 males who attend monthly sessions on a variety of topics. In June, the topic was leadership. The group discussed the different types of leadership such as transformational, servant, participatory and authoritative.  They also learned about leadership versus management.

So far in 2023, AIL health clinics have treated 15,971 male patients out of the 56,478 patients presenting with new issues. In addition, the two Community Health Worker posts visited 4,754 families to provide medical help including to males in the family.

AIL continues to serve young men and boys in their communities providing education health care giving them opportunity for a better life.