Our Orphanages

The AFCECO orphanages are all located in rented house, and each orphanage houses anywhere from thirty to eighty children. The facilities are usually large houses with lawn and all the amenities that make a place feel like home. Every orphanage is run by a live-in couple, with assistance from a staff including widows who otherwise would be destitute in the streets. Children are given a variety of responsibilities, all cleaning,...

Inside the Orphanage

when we hear the word orphanage, for most of us cavernous halls with rows of straw mattresses come to mind, cold and embattled attendants who have grown indifferent to crying, and dirty fingernails, soiled sheets, and lice-ridden hair. Whenever anyone visits an AFCECO orphanage, the first thing they notice is how clean it is and how happy the children are.

The Story of AFCECO

Natalie Carney, a multi-media broadcast journalist from Canada spent one month in Mehan Orphanage filming daily life of children.

Our Orphanage

Each orphanage houses anywhere from thirty to eighty children. The facilities are usually large houses with lawn and all the amenities that make a place feel like home. Every orphanage is run by a live-in couple, with assistance from a staff including widows who otherwise would be destitute in the streets.

Children are given a variety of responsibilities, all cleaning, cooking, maintenance and laundry is shared duty. They sleep together on double-bunk beds in curtained, homey rooms with high ceilings, four to six bunk beds per room. Initially they are assessed and treated for addiction problems and psychological illness. The children attend public schools including Afghanistan National Institute of Music. The children have variety extracurricular activities in orphanage and they are given responsibility to help in the running of the orphanage, and everyone is taught to work together as if one big family.

Our Children

Most of the children in AFCECO orphanages are orphans, victims of child labor and are from destitute families livening in remote areas who can’t afford to feed and educate them. There are also very talented children with unique skills live in our orphanages who had no access to a nourishing environment where they could grow. Most of these children have been exposed to very hostile and painful environments. They enter the orphanage in a state of wonder. This new environment is a world apart from their prior lives, a place where they can sleep and eat without fear. Here they begin a new life based on peace, love and respect. With strings attached to villages and family they are not disconnected from their country, but rather those connections are reinforced. They learn how a family can grow.

Our Sponsors

Each child in our orphanage has a sponsor. Child sponsors provide the lifeblood that enables AFCECO to do its work and to flourish.

Sponsoring a child through AFCECO is a potent act. It is an act of caring, of joy, of interconnection, of empowerment. It is an act whose benefits flow both ways.

Our sponsored children get to communicate with someone from another part of the world who has an interest in their welfare, who cares about their future and the future of their country. They have the chance to contribute to the rebuilding of their nation.

CharityHelp International

CharityHelp International (CHI) has partnered with AFCECO since 2004, providing communications technology, development and administrative support for the Child Sponsorship Program. The program connects children to sponsors and provides frequent online communications to strengthen and maintain the resulting relationships. The children in our project with AFCECO come from backgrounds defined by decades of war and Taliban rule. The program provides food, clothing, life skills, education, and most importantly a dream and hope for a new life in an environment of gender equality, peace, and safety.

Who We Are

What we do

Education

the gift that lasts forever

NATALIE CARNEY, 2009

The Story of AFCECO

Our Orphanage

Our Children

Our Sponsors

CharityHelp International