Nakhla Program

We have taken responsibility for their monthly expenses, health, education, and tarbiyah (nurturing).

Initially, we selected areas with heavy fighting that has many widows and orphans.

Most widow families live with relatives. The hosts provide not only shelter but also social support.

Sponsoring the orphans and ignoring the hosts' children would have produced a class differentiation within the same homes. We decided to sponsor all of the children of the hosts as well.

Nakhla 1 is in the Zurmat District in Paktia province, which borders Kurram District in Pakistan, and has 26 widows, 103 orphans, and 53 host children.

Nakhla 2, in the Sabari District in Khost province, borders North Waziristan District in Pakistan and has 15 widows, 47 orphans, and 23 host children.

Nakhla 3, in the Sharan District in Paktika province, borders South Waziristan District in Pakistan. It has 26 widows, 92 orphans, and 30 host children.

Widows in traditional sponsorship programs are reluctant to remarry as they lose their stipend. In our Nakhla program, the stipend increases from Rs. 30,000/month to Rs. 42,000/month if the widow remarries.

Alhamdolillah, since May 2022, the stipend has been distributed by collaborative teams of Aid to Afghanistan (ATA), our organization based in Karachi, and Naseer Foundation, an Afghan NGO, our implementing partners.

We plan to ultimately have 32 Nakhlas, one in each province of Afghanistan.

This strategic project takes massive resources–human capital, time, and money–to move forward. To date, we have not asked for sponsorship and were financing this huge project through the donations of some of our trusted friends. We were waiting to establish the project on the ground, identify and recruit the teams and streamline logistics. We wanted to select suitable families, gather accurate data, and bring local authorities on board, like the provincial governments, the Ministry of Martyrs, and the Ministry of Interior.

Similarly, Pakistan's agency for coordinating humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan (PACF) has been briefed.

Our homework is done! We have stretched ourselves to the maximum.