International Assistance Mission (IAM)
ICP Afghanistan Annual Report, Jan-Dec 2023
In 2023, Afghanistan was ranked 170th out of 170 nations in the world for security, justice, and women’s inclusion.[1] Food insecurity is still one of the biggest challenges in Afghanistan. Save the Children, an international NGO, reported in December 2023 that one out of every three children will suffer from hunger in 2024.
With so many obstacles to overcome in 2023, there was much opportunity for IAM employees to advance through capacity building programs. The management team attended the ICDP training. A team of the IAM counsellors and trainers also participated in a workshop with focused on child development.
We had opportunity to conduct ICDP training for community volunteer, community leaders, parents and teachers.
- Parents who received ICDP Trainings considered this training necessary for all families. They appreciated the knowledge of trainers and asked IAM, if possible, convey the messages to all parents in the community. In addition, they promised to share the topics with other families.
- The teachers, who trained in ICDP topics, said these training enhance their capacity to work together and teach children without violence, this will create a secure and happy learning environment for both teachers and students. They also requested IAM to conduct more trainings for teachers as they believe the trainings helped increasing the level of flexibility among the teachers and students. They added that there are still many untrained teachers who are not behaving the students rightly. They emphasized the role of IAM in term of including untrained teachers in these trainings.
- Community leaders who received the training sessions suggested some other topics to include them in this training, such as teaching kids how to eat healthy food. In addition, some of these participants asked the trainers to create a telegram channel and invite all the participants to the channel where they can discuss more their questions and remaining topics.
- parents highly support their child’s emotional, social, and cognitive development which leads to self-esteem, and overall well-being.
- While receiving the positive parenting trainings, the parents promised to prevent other parents from issues such as aggression, defiance, or disobedience towards their children.
One of the key-focuses of the mental health program is to improve the level of community support for mental health issues. Over the reporting period, we have seen positive signs of community support in child issues, family relationship and behavior with children. Some examples are:
- Children issues were discussed in monthly Shura meetings. This shows children is a priority for the Shura members.
- Religious leaders spoke about mental health and the role of communities to support parents to take café of children in a more appropriate ways.
- Shura members conducted public awareness for 1,240 community members and discussed about the children.
- 8 schools allocated time for discussion on child development topics in their schools and 69 teachers who got the training spoken the for student and their parents.
Training in 2023:
79 parents (38 men and 41 women) trained
81 Community Leaders and Mullahs (35 men and 41 women)
69 Teachers/principals (45 men and 24 women)
1,240 Families received mental health awareness.
[1] https://www.rescue.org/article/afghanistan-entire-population-pushed-poverty#:~:text=Poverty%20is%20impacting%20more%20than,rationing%20and%20other%20coping%20strategies.