Mahwash: A Documentary Film, directed by Sam Javadi and supported by Uplift’s Arts & Culture Fund, follows the remarkable journey of Ustad Mahwash—Afghanistan’s first female maestro and a pioneering voice in Afghan music. Her story transcends borders and celebrates the strength of the human spirit.

The environmental impact of war and armed conflict links us all together as a global community in ways we may not always realize.

This week, Uplift’s Director of Humanitarian Relief, Hila-Nawa Alam, attended the 2024 Paris Peace Forum to meet with leaders and grassroots organizations seeking sustainable solutions to urgent problems around the world.

This month we celebrate the third anniversary of the founding of Uplift Afghanistan Fund. Your unwavering support over the last three years has allowed us to carry out our mission to reimagine aid work through projects ranging from mental health to cultural preservation, girls’ education, women’s economic empowerment, and so much more—all led by the local communities we serve.

Last week, Uplift’s Executive Director, Ilaha Eli Omar, traveled to Afghanistan to visit with our local partners and see firsthand the progress of the many projects we've implemented with your support. Among the communities Ilaha visited was Parwana, where she attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the successful completion of the first phase of our ongoing project to rebuild Herat.

When refugee children are offered educational opportunities, they enthusiastically take them. That’s what we’ve learned through our partnership with AB Academy, an educational institution in Pakistan for Afghan refugee children.

For International Women’s Day this year, we want to highlight the unique mental health challenges faced by Afghan women and girls.

In October 2023, three massive earthquakes shook Herat; destroying entire villages, taking thousands of lives, and displacing many more. With so many people left vulnerable—families with children, families who lost their livelihoods because of the destruction—we knew we needed to do more to help with long-term resilience and recovery. 

In October, feelings of fear and disorientation took hold when it was announced that Afghans living in Pakistan had one month to leave or face dire legal consequences.

Uplift was featured this week in the Financial Times’ “How To Spend It” section for our earthquake relief response and ongoing permanent housing project in Herat, Afghanistan.

On October 3rd, 2023, Pakistan gave migrants and refugees without residence papers only 28 days to leave the country or face arrest, detention, and forcible expulsion. The situation is further exacerbated by the Pakistani government restricting those being expelled to bring the equivalent of only $178 USD of their own money upon leaving; in effect dispossessing many of their hard-earned wealth, homes, belongings, and businesses.

We’re proud to partner with Sustainable Economic & Livelihood Development Organization (SELDO) to provide training in sustainable farming techniques to extremely vulnerable and disaster-affected families, many of whom are women-headed, in the Jaghato District of Wardak Province, Afghanistan.

Thanks to the compassion and generosity of our donors, we’ve been able to support, in collaboration with CDDO, emergency relief efforts in Herat over the last week and a half.

Today is #InternationalDayoftheGirl—a day to recognize the incredible potential and capacity of girls. As an organization founded and led by women, one of our main goals is to implement projects in Afghanistan and for Afghan refugees that protect and empower women and girls to be financially and socially independent despite the unjust and highly restrictive limitations imposed on their freedom and rights.

This month marks the second anniversary of the founding of Uplift Afghanistan. As an organization founded and led by Afghan women, we have dedicated the past two years to working with international allies to ensure the safety of human rights defenders, journalists, ethnic minorities, and other at-risk Afghans. Within Afghanistan, we have transparently and equitably delivered aid to vulnerable female-headed households, people with disabilities, the elderly, and all manner of Afghans in need.

Nooruddin is a resident of a small village in the Badakhshan province, where many community members have been employed in Cash-for-Work projects by Uplift and Community Driven Development Organization (CDDO) to rehabilitate a road and build a protection wall to prevent future damage. Nooruddin says the road has already provided abundant benefits for himself and his fellow community members.

“Before working on this project, we were in great trouble because of unemployment. We have physical fitness and really enjoy working, but there was no work to do.”

“I hope for my children to become leaders who support the community, for my family to have a well-equipped house, and for my village to have a market for business to support my family and others in need.”

It doesn’t have to be Earth Day to care about the environment. Join our team at Uplift to work towards a more sustainable Afghanistan and prevent climate migration, today.

Our Cash-for-Work projects in Afghanistan, in collaboration with CDDO, are designed alongside community members with the goal of benefiting the community as a whole.

As the world watches, Afghan women continue to disappear from public life; stripped of their basic human rights, freedom of movement, and the right to earn a livelihood to feed themselves and their families.

Uplift’s Director of Humanitarian Relief, Hila Nawa-Alam, was published in PeaceRep this week sharing Uplift’s methods for delivering aid to Afghanistan’s most vulnerable populations with the help of community development councils.

Let this eid serve as a reminder of the strength in unity as we find ways to share kindness and compassion with friends, loved ones, and those around the world who need it most.

On World Refugee Day, we celebrate the courage of refugees worldwide while also recognizing that nobody chooses to be a refugee; that this status is one of necessity, and that we must work together to support and be compassionate towards those who face no option but to leave their home in the pursuit of freedom and security.

Cash-for-Work is a short term intervention to provide temporary employment to public projects to the most vulnerable segments of the population. The projects incentivize individuals to improve their own communities from within.

Last year, Uplift piloted a Cash-for-Work program in 2 provinces in Afghanistan with great success in collaboration with our partner organization, Community Driven Development Organization (CDDO). This year, in an effort to contribute to reducing poverty, we have expanded the program to 12 provinces.

Since August 2021, millions of girls and women inside Afghanistan have been denied the most basic of human rights—an education. Afghanistan is currently the only country in the world that denies education past the 6th grade for girls. The potential loss of generations of educated girls and women will have a lasting and devastating impact on the development of both women and Afghan society at large.

Uplift’s micro-grant program focuses on developing projects that empower women to become economically independent. Uplift is supporting a project run by our partner organization Hope for Afghan Women that provides vending carts and business training/mentorship to female-headed households.

Baseera, 13, fled Afghanistan with her family last year and started attending one of Uplift’s schools for refugee children in Pakistan. An aspiring artist, she immediately wanted to get involved in the art program at her school.