Afghan Connection has been building schools in rural areas of Afghanistan since 2002 . By the end of 2009 we will have funded 30 school constructions. We have built Swedish Committee supported schools and Government supported schools. Now we are concentrating on the SCA Model schools. These schools are all twinned to schools in the UK and Sweden and we aim to have all the children studying under a roof with desks and benches, science laboratories, computers, libraries and sports grounds and equipment. They will all have access to clean water and latrines. These schools will be used as resource centres by the surrounding schools.

Each year I have a wish list of schools which need building. As we use up our funding every year on such projects, January to March each year is spent frantically searching for donors. During such times it is easy to think about giving up and to imagine that funds will never be forthcoming.This year I couldn’t have been more wrong as I suffered particularly badly from doubts!

We managed to fund our entire wish list thanks to our incredible donors—some new and some who have supported us for years now. As a result of their generosity we have projects going on in 10 schools this year for over 10,000 children in total. These are all twin schools linked to schools in Sweden or UK.

This trip I visited Mashad School—for 2500 girls .This is the largest project we have ever undertaken and it was incredible arriving on the building site-hundreds of builders are employed here. The cement mixers were in action and the massive equipment for digging a well was in full swing. 22 rooms are under construction and as I watched the thousands of girls studying outside on a cold October morning, it felt wonderful to think that they will have a beautiful new school by the Spring time.

I also visited Jari Shah Baba, twinned to Holt School and saw the new classroom block, wall and well under construction. This new building will mean that all 1250 girls in the school will now study indoors-at present many are out in tents or in the open.

Sang Boran, twinned to Eton has also attracted funding and the 2000 boys there are thrilled that they will, at last ,have a school building—again a huge project. Eton has given us a grant towards equipping the school and the two houses supporting the twinning have done sponsored runs and charity days to raise funds for equipping it too.

I also visited Zouhruddin Girls and Boys schools and this is where we were greeted by thousands of children and villagers and garlanded and bunched and showered with confetti—the joy these new buildings have caused is palpable. Thanks to a donor who visited Afghanistan with me and has already built Syab School, we have funding for the boys school at Zouhruddin now and work has just started. The girls school has over 20 new classrooms and a sports area and has results which are the best in the entire province.

Also under construction are classrooms for  Roghano School-linked to Brighton and Hove and Marshgate; Bibi Hajar-Swedish link and  Ghazi Gul Ahmad, linked to Elstree.

A.C is building wells at Syab schools and Toot Mazar and has completed a surrounding wall at Bibi Fatimah, which means more girls will come to school and they will be allowed to play sport.

Thanks to your support and our individual donors and twin schools, we will have provided classrooms for nearly 30,000 children by the end of next year …and the good news is that we keep our administration costs so low  that 96% of our income goes on projects.