20 Years of Shelter Now - 20 Years of Help for the Afghans
Georg Taubmann, Director of Shelter Now Afghanistan, looks back on how it all began...
Beginnings in Pakistan
In 1983, I took a number of old trucks from Germany to Pakistan. We bought them in Germany after we heard that the Pakistani Government had officially registered us as an aid organization in Peshawar. The journey turned out to be an adventure in itself. It was the middle of winter and we had to get the two heavily-laden trucks from southern Germany to Pakistan. In thick snow, we drove through eastern Turkey and then on through Iran which at that time was embroiled in war with Iraq. Late at night, we drove through the darkened streets of Tehran, where in those days missile attacks were frequent. Finally we arrived safely in Pakistan; it was mid-March.
That same year, Shelter Now opened an office in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar. The aim was to provide help to the surrounding refugee camps. In particular, we planned to build houses for the many refugees. The poorest of the poor were our priority – the widows and orphans. We also built schools and clinics. We conducted our first project together with the UNHCR (United Nations organization for refugees) and the Pakistani authorities responsible for refugees. We built around 2000 houses in the various camps. But every day, thousands of new refugees were arriving from Afghanistan, fleeing the fighting. About 1.3 million crossed the border around that time, most of them ended up in Peshawar or the surrounding area.
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| Refugees waiting to receive a hot meal |
Since 1983, there have been a number of large refugee movements. In 1996, for example, tens of thousands fled as the Taliban took over the capital Kabul. 1998 saw another mass exodus as the Taliban carried out devastating massacres in the Shamalie Region where Shelter Now is today working on reconstruction. Shelter Now built up a large camp in Pakistan to take in many of these refugees, building a simple loam house for each family. We also built schools, handed out food and much more.
Over the years, we have distributed millions of Euros worth of food, often working closely with the UNHCR and the World Food Program (WFP), the UN organization responsible for food distribution. Today, Shelter Now continues to be the largest partner organization for the WFP in Pakistan, where there are still around 1 million Afghan refugees. Shelter Now is committed to helping in the refugee camps there as many are not yet able to return to their homeland.
We offered special help for children. One of our programs involved distributing milk fortified with vitamin A to up to 18,000 children a day. The program ran for over 6 years.
In Afghanistan – Life under the Mujahedin and the Soviets
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| Production of concrete roof beams in one of our factories |
Shelter Now has worked in Afghanistan since 1988. In those days, we were active in the areas occupied by the Mujahedin. We opened a factory for producing concrete beams to use in place of wood for building roofs. Hundreds of thousands of homes that had been destroyed in the war had to be rebuilt. The traditional buildings in Afghanistan have flat roofs which are supported by wooden beams. But the forests in Afghanistan have been badly decimated over the years and there are very few trees left at all. Our idea was to preserve these by using alternative material. Concrete beams also last a lot longer than wood and can be manufactured very easily using materials that are readily available in Afghanistan.
After a few years, we had built up five factories in Afghanistan and one in Pakistan. Thousands of houses were rebuilt with the materials produced as a result. Shelter Now was officially registered in Afghanistan in 1992, after the fall of the Communist government. From this point onwards, reconstruction projects became a second major focus in our work. But the refugee work had to continue. One of the largest influxes of refugees to Pakistan came in 1994. Kabul came under heavy fire from various Mujahedin groups. Hundreds of thousands of people fled the city in the winter of 1994; many of them ended up in Pakistan. Shelter Now was instrumental in building two large refugee camps in Pakistan. The loam houses which we built together with the refugees have since become a model for others. They can be built for no more than the price of a tent. And in every other aspect, are far superior to tents, offering protection from the heat, rain and cold, and of course greater space for living. We showed the refugees from Kabul how to build the houses for themselves using our materials. In this way, huge refugee settlements were developed.
After the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Afghanistan at the end of the 1980s, interest in the country dropped dramatically. As long as the Soviet army was there and the Afghans were resisting the occupiers, there was plenty of support from the West. But after that it was no longer a focal point. Many organizations simply upped and left. It became very difficult to maintain the flow of funds – particularly for helping refugees. Over time, the situation became increasingly difficult, reaching an all-time low under the Taliban. But there were a few donor organizations who did help us to keep our projects running. In fact we were even able to expand some of our work in spite of the difficulties.
Life under the Taliban
When the Taliban came to power, we had to be re-registered. It was a time when our work was expanding considerably. We began to operate in new areas that had previously been inaccessible, although we were still active among the refugees. Working under the Taliban regime was a major challenge. But with time, the Taliban came to realize that our work was very effective, and so they allowed us not only to continue our projects but also to expand them.
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| Cleaning irrigation tunnels |
The Afghan people suffered greatly under the Taliban. Shelter Now was able to help many – for example by building houses and organizing large drinking water projects. For one project in the town of Ghazni, we employed over 1800 local people who worked in particular to renew and expand the irrigation systems – known in Afghanistan as ”Kareez” – and to repair old wells and dig new ones. We also devoted our attention to the children on the streets of Kabul. We built a day center for them where they could receive a hot meal each day and medical care. They were able to take part in craft projects; the things they made were then sold at the market, earning them some pocket money. Football was another popular pastime for the children at the center. It meant that they were off the streets for a few hours, and did not have to beg or steal.
In 1999, a powerful earthquake hit the province of Logar, leaving many homeless. Shelter Now rebuilt around 500 houses there.
All the time, funding remained a major problem. There were very few aid organizations who wanted to stay and work under such difficult conditions. But the Shelter Now staff continued to help the Afghans with great dedication and determination. My wife and I have been involved in this work since 1983, from the time we first took the trucks to Pakistan up until my arrest in Afghanistan in 2001 and then again since 2002. The Taliban era remains one of the worst in our memory. The sense of hopelessness among the Afghans was so great that many who had stuck it out in Kabul all through the years of the Communists and the Mujahedin suddenly saw no future for themselves in Afghanistan. Many sold up and left. Anyone who was at all able, emigrated, as there was little hope that things might improve in Afghanistan. The Taliban regime was impervious to the condemnation of the international community with regard to human rights violations in Afghanistan. Music was banned. Strict rules were enforced concerning men’s hairstyles and beard length. Anyone caught not praying at the appointed times was beaten and thrown into prison. An extreme interpretation of Islam was forced on the people. Meanwhile, the international community appeared increasingly indifferent – even in the face of larger humanitarian disasters. In the winter of 2000, between four and five hundred people froze to death in just a few days in the world’s largest refugee camp in Herat, but it aroused little interest abroad.
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