From helping to fund women’s education to providing the very basics of life, an island-based charity has had to adapt to the increasingly grim situation in Afghanistan.
The Linda Norgrove Foundation has now supported women and children in the war-torn country with more than £3 million of aid in 13 years.
As it reached the milestone, it had to respond to the collapse of the Afghan economy since the Taliban take-over in 2021.
As well continuing to help younger girls at school, it is also providing emergency food and fuel to the population.
Lifesaving food parcels
This year alone the foundation has sent 1,081 food parcels to desperately poor families headed by women.
The parcels have been lifesavers for people like Lina, a former teacher, and her husband, a security officer with the previous government.
She lost her job after the Taliban closed girls’ schools and her husband is also now unemployed and fearing arrest.
The support was welcomed by the couple and their two children. They were left hungry and struggling to pay their rent, a situation unimaginable two years ago.
Funds have been used for a range of other projects including to buy shoes for orphans and poor children.
Stoves and wood fuel have been bought for families headed by women. Life-changing operations have been paid for in a country where only 9% of health facilities have a functional operating room.
Supporting women’s and girls’ education was a major driver for Linda Norgrove, the aid worker from Lewis who died in 2010 in a failed rescue attempt following her kidnapping in Afghanistan.
Her parents John and Lorna set up the foundation in her memory and had raised £2 million by the charity’s tenth anniversary.
Afghan students helped with rising costs
Until 2021, the foundation had been funding an increasing number of scholarships for women studying at university, particularly medical students.
But under the Taliban around 10.5 million girls are being denied an education beyond the age of 12.
The foundation continues to support those who go to school as well as scholarship students by paying an increased allowance to help them cope with the rising costs of food and fuel.
John Norgrove said: “Our task has become harder since the Taliban took control.
“It was a terrible blow for our students when they announced women could no longer attend university.”
The foundation has been urging the UK Government to help its efforts to allow 20 Afghan women continue their medical studies in Scotland.
Mr Norgrove added: “A number of our students were only weeks away from becoming doctors.
“But we are hopeful we may find a way of bringing at least some of them here to complete their studies.
“Otherwise, it’s a tragic waste of female talent, as well as a tragic waste for their home country which desperately needs women doctors.
“We have had tremendous support from the medical schools and we continue to urge the UK Government to make good on their promise of bringing at risk Afghans here.
“Discussions are continuing on this front.”
In 2021, the foundation helped two aid workers flee Afghanistan and resettle in Stornoway.