IoS appeal

IoS Appeal: Veteran British Army officers are leading the fight to restore Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley

It was once the most dangerous region in Afghanistan, where the Russians and the Taliban both feared to tread. Now, a hardy band of veteran British Army officers is leading the fight to restore health and prosperity to the impoverished Panjshir Valley. Raymond Whitaker reports on The Independent on Sunday's Christmas charity appeal

Inside IoS appeal

IoS Appeal: No road, no privacy no place to give birth

Sunday, 30 December 2007

The dirt road to Shotol twists perilously up the side of the Panjshir Valley, bringing nervous glances over precipices and heart-stopping encounters with oncoming trucks. Yet even though it replaced a crumbling track barely fit for mules, the road still bypasses the village's basic health clinic. "When we have an emergency, we have to carry the patient in a stretcher to the top of the hill, where an ambulance can pick them up," says a local health official.

IoS Appeal: New baby clinics build trust among the fearful poor

Sunday, 23 December 2007

A man is pacing up and down outside the mother and child health clinic at Rokha in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley until the breathy cry of a newborn baby breaks the tension. Dr Malalai, the head of the clinic, comes out and tells him: "It's a boy."

IoS Appeal: The new bakery that brings a village bread and dignity

Sunday, 16 December 2007

Imagine the effort and inconvenience if, instead of buying bread at the supermarket, every household in your street had to bake their own, every day. That is what happens in Af-ghanistan's Panjshir Valley, where the duplication of labour, and the waste of scarce firewood as each household bakes just a few flat naan loaves a day, contributes to the desperate poverty of the area.

IoS Appeal: Afghan Mother and Child Rescue: a new clinic high in the mountains

Sunday, 9 December 2007

A mother pulls down her blue burqa as we approach the community health clinic at Darra, high in the mountains of Afghanistan. The baby in her arms is grizzling listlessly. "He has a respiratory ailment, but the basic problem is that he is malnourished, like most of the children here," explains Hadisa Aladod, the clinic's midwife, as the woman queues up at the dispensary counter for medicine.

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