A MESSAGE FROM RAWA THIS HOLIDAY SEASON:

Keep the Light of Hope Alive Support RAWA’s Orphanage Program

UNICEF and other sources say:
- 60% of children have lost at least one member of their family or close relatives

- Over 600,000 children sleep on the streets.- For every 50,000 there is only one physician

- 100,000 children are disabled - 60,000 children in Afghanistan are addicted to drugs- Over 37,000 children work and beg in the streets of Kabul alone

- There are about 8,000 former child soldiers

- An estimated one million are child labourers in Afghanistan.

These heart-wrenching statistics about the Afghan children have made the RAWA residential children’s projects the cornerstone of our social programs. The children have been the prime victims of the three decades of unprecedented wars and brutalities.They need help dealing with the trauma of homelessness, hunger, disability, and abuse.

If we educate and aid this next generation of Afghans to grow up in a peaceful environment,we can guarantee a prosperous Afghanistan.

With more than 20 years of experience in running children’s projects, RAWA has createda framework for the children that teach them to respect and love each other regardless of language, religion, race, sex, color, etc.

To learn more about the lives of the children in the RAWA orphanages, please visit: http://www.rawa.org/orphanages.htm CharityHelp International (CHI, http://www.charityhelp.org)/, a US based organization teamed with RAWA to launch the Child Sponsorship project in late 2004. This project enables people around the world to sponsor Afghan children. Today, the project is helping more than 200 children rebuild their lives in RAWA’s program.

As a sponsor, you can build a relationship with your child through regular exchange of emails containing text and photographs. In addition, you will also get regular updates about the orphanage program and events from CHI and RAWA with pictures and slideshows.

View a slideshow of child-sponsor communications here: http://www.charityhelp.org/rawa/slideshow1 Supporting these children is not only a gift to them as individuals; it is a gift to the world's future. Against staggering odds, they have made it this far, surviving as lights of hope through the darkest of nights. It is up to us to help them continue to shine.

”-Jennifer A. Hartley, CHI Board Membe

r Join us in keeping the light of hope burning through the darkest of nights!

For less than a dollar a day, you can provide on-going support to complement our childsponsorship program. To view the children who you can sponsor and communicate with on a regular basis,please visit: https://www.charityhelp.org/rawa. After you view these children, you can select one and sponsor this child using your own computer. Please note that we find we must increase the sponsorship rates due to the high inflation rate in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Although we are holding the existing rate until the end of this year, the new rates are going to be about $6 higher thanthe old rates. (In the last 6 months 1 kg of rice has gone from 33 to 75 rupees.)

Thank you for your continuing support.RAWA