SAWA-Australia

Decades of war and continuing armed conflict have left thousands of Afghan women as widows and Afghan girls without education and future.

SAWA-Australia is dedicated to raising funds for human rights, education, nutrition, health, safety, and improving the self-esteem of the millions of Afghan women and children in Pakistan's refugee camps and within Afghanistan.

SAWA is operated entirely by volunteers and supports RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. RAWA operates schools, orphanages and a clinic. RAWA's aim is a secular Afghanistan that guarantees human rights for women. Its education policy embraces secularism, religious, ethnic and gender tolerance and rejection of violence. (See http://www.rawa.org for detailed information on RAWA.)

Annual SAWA membership is $20, $10 concession and $5 for students.

SAWA's aim is to assist RAWA's projects in all areas, both inside Afghanistan and in the refugee camps in Pakistan. As a small organization with only a short history of fundraising SAWA cannot contribute to all these areas at present. Apart from occasional minor contributions to other RAWA activities, SAWA concentrates on two projects:

Hewad High School

Hewad High School is located in Rawalpindi, a city in Pakistan with a high Afghan refugee population. It is a primary and secondary school and covers years 1 - 12. Hewad is the Pashto word for Fatherland. It is one of the few schools that managed to remain open when RAWA's funding stream was reduced to a trickle after the fall of the Taliban and people's attention was diverted from Afghanistan. SAWA took on the support of Hewad High School after RAWA's very successful Naseema Shaheed High School had to close its doors when the Pakistani government forced the closure of Khewa refugee camp.

Vocational Training Centre for Women

The Vocational Training Centre for Women in Kabul was established in February 2008 to assist illiterate war widows to establish a regular income for their families. It is staffed by three literacy teachers and one handicraft trainer and offers free adult literacy classes and handicraft training.
Literacy courses run for 24 months and finish with the issuing of a certificate. Handicraft courses run for 3 months, after which time the participants can establish the economic base to support a family. The centre has the capacity to accommodate 90 literacy students and 10 handicraft trainees. On an annual basis this corresponds to 45 literacy students and 40 handicraft trainees.

SAWA operates entirely through volunteers and does not have a single paid official. Campaigns are central to SAWA's work because they serve the dual purpose of informing the public about the situation of Afghan women and raising funds to promote change. SAWA could not run a single campaign without the active involvement of its members and supporters. SAWA consists of local support groups who follow the SAWA principles but work independently. By joining a local SAWA group or starting one in a location where none exists, young people can help SAWA to grow. Other possibilities are fundraising drives in your school, sports association or in other contexts.

SAWA promotes sponsorships of teachers at Hewad High School and at the Vocational Training Centre. $58 per month pay the salary for one teacher.The SAWA website contains detailed reports on the school, including teacher and student profiles. RAWA is also interested in sister relationships with Australian schools.