Schooling sacrificed to poverty

Afghan children sitting on a truck. Thousands of children are either begging or working in the streets [REUTERS/Ali Imam, courtesy www.alertnet.org]

The Mayhan Foundation aims to give orphans, working children and other poor children in Afghanistan the opportunity to have an education

The Mayhan Foundation (Mayhan means “native country”) was set up with the support of Cordaid in 2003, in both the Netherlands and in Afghanistan.

In a street survey conducted in April 2002, more than 37,000 children were counted as either begging or working in the streets.

The surveyors did not seek out children working in shops, homes or workshops, so a realistic estimate of the number of working children would be in excess of 50,000.

In a later survey, Mayhan interviewed street children and found that one out of five children had lost a parent.

Most children work 7-9 hours a day (the longest day - 14 hours - was mentioned by three children); three out of four fathers are illiterate, while only 3% of mothers had attended some sort of education.

Most children are not street children; they go home to their family at night, but extreme poverty obliges them to sacrifice attending school, which is basically free in Afghanistan.

In the face of this, Mayhan supports 150 girls and boys equally to follow literacy courses, twenty families to send their working children to a regular state school, and assist girls over the age of 11 with home based education where cultural dynamics restrict other options.

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