Standing With Shazia - Surviving in Afghanistan

In a world full of evermore tragic news do you wonder how you could help to make a life-changing difference to others in need but don't know where to start or how to get the full benefit from your contribution? The story we tell you here will answer both those questions and give you an opportunity to put your money where your heart is. We will show you how to cut to the chase to effectively bring your altruism to directly benefit a group of Afghans, primarily women and children, who daily live with the privations brought about by tribal war, economic collapse and arcane restrictions placed on Afghan women in particular, by the brutal regime of the Taliban.

This is the story of a grassroots direct aid program like few you would have ever heard of. We, Aussie friends Kim Eastman and Shelly (Michele) Ramm, raise money from our contacts within Australia and from around the world, placing it directly in the hands of trusted, caring and capable young Afghans who in turn bring the gifts of food, necessities and hope to those in dire need in their village and surrounds, where the regular aid agencies and NGO's have not reached. In the management of our small dedicated aid program there is no red tape, no middle managers, no loss of funds to wages or operational costs....just the transfer of all incoming donations from your hand, to our hand and then directly into the hands of our Afghan contacts on the ground, for distribution to those they have identified as most in need.

This story takes time to tell, but please share in this journey and learn why we are now inviting you to join us. If you do, you will learn that this initiative unites those with the heart and generosity to give with those who desperately need to receive. Both sides of this union, the givers and receivers, stand to gain immeasurable rewards.

Our program started 16 months ago shortly after the fall of Kabul into the hands of the Taliban. Only months into the takeover, we discovered Afghans were faced with the reality of an 80% collapse in the economy, lack of work, restrictions on women's rights and freedoms and spiralling food costs... when scarce commodities could be found. As we began researching what we could do to help Afghan women and children in particular, we luckily made contact with an Afghan midwife in her early 20's living in a remote province in Afghanistan. We will call her Shazia here, for her anonymity and security in what can be intimidating and dangerous circumstances for a woman. For the same reasons, we do not identify the province and village where she lives and carries out our program. At the time we made contact, Shazia was using the internet to get the message out to the wider world of the impending humanitarian crisis Afghans were witnessing unfolding around them in the wake of the Taliban takeover.

Shazia's surviving family of five had long been accustomed to difficult times, as had others in their region. She and her three siblings grew up in one of the outer regions of Afghanistan which had remained a stronghold of Taliban, Isis and Al-Qaeda fighting, in spite of the outside world military presence. Safety and security were never available to them.

Five years ago Shazia trained as a midwife and worked in the provinces for a French NGO, delivering maternal healthcare to regional areas. Armed Taliban stopped and threatened her wellbeing if she didn't cease working for the international aid agency. She was forced to give up her position and move to a city for anonymity and safety where she continued her work as a maternal and child healthcare support worker. Shortly after, her father, who had devoted his life to the promotion of education for all, was shot dead by the Taliban as he left his mosque. The rest of her family fled to the city for safety, with Shazia now bearing full responsibility for her family's financial wellbeing.

With the fall of Kabul in August of 2020, the newly declared Taliban government decreed that women could no longer work, forcing Shazia to give up her dream of creating better conditions for childbearing women. Returning to the province, Shazia and her family found themselves destitute in a village marked by poverty and food scarcity, in a country in economic free fall. The Taliban immediately reneged on promised women's rights, clamping down harshly on freedoms women had enjoyed, violently enforcing new measures with beatings. Women and girls now must remain within their homes, except in the company of a male relative, wear the burqa in public, and remain uneducated above primary school. This denies women and girls any agency in their own lives and destroys their hope for a more just and fulfilling future, a devastating realisation weighing heavily on all females in Afghanistan. This situation makes what happened next in our relationship with Shazia all the more astounding.

After months of contact with Shazia, as well as watching the international media, aid agencies and the World Health Organisation confirm the dire humanitarian crisis spiralling out of control in Afghanistan, we approached Shazia with a proposition. We suggested we could work together to provide direct financial aid to her family if they would use their local knowledge and family connections to use the bulk of the money to bring food and necessities to the most vulnerable in their community. She confirmed that she and her family were up for taking on this challenge, not without risk to themselves in a village of 1,000 people, some of whom were Taliban sympathisers.

Having completed our due diligence, we were able to confirm both her and her family's identities, as she provided us with their official identifications and work-related history and documents. We felt confident enough to take the first step to send money to her family to begin this direct food aid initiative. What started with the family handing out food parcels from their back door quickly grew to where we regularly deliver food, basic necessities, occasional money for emergency medical care, winter clothing, blankets and firewood to 70+ impoverished people, mostly women widowed through ongoing conflict plus their dependent children.

Initially, we started by sending $500 Australian dollars a month to Afghanistan but as the need grew, we began fundraising amongst a small group of friends here in Australia and overseas and reached a point where we now send just over $1,000 AUD each month via MoneyGram. Though the need is far greater, this is at the limit of what we have so far been able to reliably raise among our contacts on a monthly basis.

Shazia's family of five each have their roles in the program, from identifying those in greatest need, to travelling over 100 kms to wait in line for up to 2 days to collect the money we send, to shopping at the markets for food and necessities, to delivering the goods to those in need.

It can be dangerous work and it doesn't always go smoothly. Once on a trip to the market to collect supplies, Shazia's brother encountered five dead bodies in a car on the road and had to retreat to the relative safety of home to try another time. On another occasion, an attack helicopter bombed the next village 20 kms away, killing many civilians and children, so once again it was unsafe to drive anywhere to collect money or gather food supplies until life returned to what they consider to be normal.

Through the close collaboration and trust that has been established between us in the past year, we have concluded that this caring family has so much heart, integrity and drive that there exists potential to expand this program to more people in need, as well as secure additional funds to ensure the ongoing viability of the initiative. They regularly provide us with an account of the reality of life in Afghanistan and also photos showing the recipients receiving the deliveries of lifesaving goods. Some of the photos show families living in tents or in block houses with no windows, exposed to the fierce heat of summer and the freezing temperatures of winter. We publish these stories and photos in our monthly newsletter.

Our Afghan recipient families are very grateful for everything we are able to do. Shazia tells us of families who offer nightly prayers for our wellbeing and how they find it amazing that people from across the world, whom they will likely never meet, have banded together to provide for them when their options are few and their immediate futures so bleak.

When we first talked with Shazia she had big dreams. As a practicing midwife, she wanted to be part of the creation of better maternal health services for the women of her province through the establishment of clinics. She still holds those dreams but has now refocussed her immediate energy into identifying need and alleviating suffering in her community, with our help.

We invite you to help us help them. We have set a fundraising target of at least $10,000 to allow us to have the planning flexibility to expand our reach further into the community during the difficult Afghan winter, while at the same time carry enough funds month to month to ensure we can meet our commitment to these very deserving folk well into the foreseeable future. We appreciate one-time donations of any amount but ask that you consider becoming one of our regular monthly donors if you are able. The details on how to set this up are supplied in our monthly newsletter which you can ask to receive by contacting us via email. Details at the bottom of this page.

We are exceedingly grateful to anyone who will come with us on this journey of love, care and generosity of spirit. We are humbled by the trust you place in us and our Afghan friends to honour that generosity. We have found this journey to be enormously rewarding and we think you will too. This fundraising drive will offer our many Afghan recipient families hope. Our own hope is that you will find it in your heart to join with us.

Thank you,

Shelly (Michele) and Kim

Standing With Shazia