Afghan Friends Network

Even though, student enrollment in Afghanistan increased 500% (from 900,000 to over 6.4 million) since 2002, still more than half of the school-age children are still out of school and majority of them are girls - School is Open

Yesterday I volunteered at a fundraising event for a wonderful organization called the Afghan Friends Network (AFN). We had wonderful Afghan food, an auction and guest speaker, author Tamim Ansary. AFN, founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2002, is a nonprofit that facilitates humanitarian, economic and educational collaborations between Americans and Afghans and delivers programs in two primary categories: education and cultural/community awareness. Their work is primarily focused in the province of Ghazni, the second largest province in Afghanistan located sixty miles southwest of Kabul.

At first they focused on women and girls, but their latest project focuses on boys. The President of AFN is a good friend and has been telling me about the wonderful work the organization does. And trully, after meeting the founder, other volunteers and supporters, I was impressed by their dedication and committment to improving the lives of children in Ghazni.