"The Taliban cut down all our fruit trees in order to permanently destroy the basis for our livelihood," say residents of the once fertile Shamalie Plain, north of Kabul. Shelter Now helps the local people develop new fruit plantations...
Micro-financing
Micro-financing is the system of providing start-up material resources to those who would otherwise be unable to obtain them. Small material loans are offered in the hope that the people who take them can use them to better their state financially in order to build themselves out of impoverishment.
As well as giving the people of Afghanistan things to help them get by, we want to give them the opportunities to grow their skills, become self-sustaining and, therefore, gain hope for their families for the future.
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Medicine for sheep
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This project includes providing winter and summer medicine to 120 families who own a total of 600 sheep and 400 lambs. This helps these flocks live through the harsh seasons of Afghanistan.
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We do this every year for a new flock of sheep passed on to 120 new families from last year's recipients.
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Bees and Honey
Honey is highly prized in Afghanistan for its nutritional value and is therefore extremely expensive. Most honey is imported. So there is a market for domestic production and even for export.
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Shelter Now provides training for Afghan families in beekeeping and honey production. Together the new and the existing fruit plantations provide sufficient feeding and collection grounds for the bees. The region is also home to many wild flowers in spring and summer.
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We select families who have little or no income and provide them with 5 colonies of bees each and an extractor with which they can remove the honey from the honeycomb. We also provide the necessary training. After one year, when the bees have reproduced, one new bee colony is given back to the project so that new families can benefit from the scheme.
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Additionally there are expenses for the training, medication and the transport of the bees into their winter camp.
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The Bee and Honey was temporarily closed down in 2021.
In 2024 we have started up again, training to provide bees, bee hives and sugar to families so that they can make their own honey and a sustainable income.
We would like to provide 10 honey hives for each of 5 families this year. The families will return the hives so that SNI can pass them on to new families the following year.
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