Saturday 4 July 2009

Bridge Team's Activities

What have been done so far?

In the past few months we have been able to raise 15000$ to help the flood victims in Afghanistan. We provided food items for about 600 families in four provinces. In the past few weeks we have started the biggest project, to find suitable shelter or hostel for 120 university student in Jawzijan province in northern Afghanistan.

Idea of providing shelter for students


The newly established university in Jawzijan province in northern Afghanistan has 2500 students in 17 departments. Most of the students (1500 Students) are from different parts of the Afghanistan. Due to lack of resources the Afghan government provided shelter only for half of the students in university dormitories. Lack of hostels in the city prevented female students from attending the university .
Students who missed the government target list had to find their own place to live in order to continue their studies. Among those, there were many students who couldn't’t afford to rent a place so they left the university. Some students rented rooms and quarters in very cheap areas like ruined markets, store rooms etc. They lived in very bad conditions. For instance five people had to share a very small room in the city in order to be able to foot the bill. They used to study, sleep, cook, and eat in the same room. The pictures that have been taken by Bridge Team living in different parts of the ruined warehouses in the city speak for themselves.

Video : students Talking about their living Condition in Ruined Wharehouses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUQhbp4gEQs






Students used to live inside the markets that is mainly used by garage to repair cars.(students studying outside in balconies in summer despite noises as it is based inside the city )


Some rooms rented by Students to live and other rooms mainly used for storage of different goods of traders.(Students can been seen in second floor )



4 to 5 students used to live in on small room.Room condition can been seen from pictures



Room that is used by Students.Hot in Summers and very cold in winters. The second picture show is the quarter or the market .this sort of markets mainly used to store goods,park trucks, and sometime Gas balloons .


Student does their laundries outside the room with little water that is available.Those who wants to study will do around the warehouses as there are no green spaces and rooms are overcrowded.


Playing volleyball . Students prepare their own meals but not in a very good kitchen



Corridor of different rooms . Students praying.

During distribution of food items for flood victims in different parts of Afghanistan, students approached the team requesting if the Bridge Team can arrange a place as hostel for them to live. Despite the lack of funds and resources the Bridge Team took the courageous decision of providing the students with adequate living space.
Bridge Team members searched the city and found a nice empty building that needed some building work, in the mean time the team met the elected local city council members to ask if they could give any assistance. Fortunately they agreed to pay the rent of the building for one year at the cost of 100$ a month. At the same time the Bridge team approached one of the local private educational centres in the city and asked for any donations and they agreed to the pay the utility bill for one year.

The Bridge Team had some funds left over from the flood donations (4000$) and another 2000 $ has been raised. With the money a new kitchen has been built and the bedrooms and library room refurbished (floor carpets, plates, spoon, and safe drinking water)
Through a collective effort finally the hostel was ready. 120 students who have been living in ruins in markets mixed with workshops have been moved into a so called hostel.
The priority has been given to poor students.

As the project continues the Bridge team is working to to over come the following plans :

1-Creating a library within the dormitory.

2-Computer Class

3-Establishing a Course to teach community children

4-Digging well for drinking water

1 comments:

Unknown said...

Well done my dear.

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