Mahboba Rawi founder of Mahboba’s Promise received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the General Division for service to international humanitarian aid in Afganistan in Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
         Please click here, to read the Media Release.

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Sporting chance for girls by Virginia Haussegger of ABC News           
          Please click here, to read the article.

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New Friends in Kabul make real difference to Hope House, June 2009.
          Please click here, for more information.            
                                                                                                                          
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ABC - Radio National Interview: Mahboba with Geraldine Doogue, 13 June 2009.
          Please click here, to listen to the Interview.

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ABC - A haven of hope amidst war torn Kabul...          
           http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/05/15/2572107.htm
                                
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Doing it tough, Kabul style, The Canberra Times, 2 May 2009
By Virginia Haussegger
 
This article has been edited
 
I’d never seen such filthy hands. I know it's rude to stare. But I was trying to work out what on earth this wide-eyed little boy had been doing to blacken his hands like that. Just then he caught me staring, and quickly hid his fingers under the folds of his tatty tunic. It was an embarrassing moment for both of us.
 
His name was Tamin and like many orphan kids in Afghanistan he doesn't know his age. He's probably about eight or nine. I met him a couple of weeks ago, when his widowed mother brought him to Hope House, an orphanage in Kabul run by Australian charity Mahboba's Promise.
 
In what highlights the primary role of men as income providers, children in Afghanistan are considered destitute orphans if their father is dead, even though they may still have a mother.
 
Tamin's father was killed two years ago by a bomb blast in Kabul. Since then, he's been supporting his mum and three sisters by working the streets as a shoe-shiner. But business is bad, and they're not coping on his piffling income. His mother is here to ask for money, flour and cooking oil. She says she wishes her girls were boys, so that they too could polish shoes. Suddenly she's overcome by the uselessness of her daughters, and starts gulping back loud tears. Then everyone in the room is crying. Not because we agree that girls are a curse. We're just exhausted by all this misery.
 
Outside the office door at Hope House there's a long queue of weeping widows. Every day they just keep coming. Covered in dirty blue burquas, they pour out their stories of loss, grief, despair and hunger. Always hunger. Some beg the staff to take their children and keep them, because they can no longer feed them. I watched hopelessly as one woman pushed her tiny, bewildered children into the office, and tried to dash away. An uncle left three kids at the orphanage gate saying, 'You take them, or I'll dump them in the bin.'
 
This is the war we are not seeing. This is life in Afghanistan.
 
As Australian troop numbers, deployment, and exit strategies dominate our media headlines, I can only wonder why it is that we rarely talk about the ordinary people at the centre of this war. What about the Afghans? Do we care? Perhaps we can't. Maybe we're suffering sympathy fatigue?
 
Sadly, it seems the only Afghans getting prime-time media space are those 'queue jumpers'. They may have risked their lives to escape unimaginable trauma, yet with breathtaking stupidity some political commentators suggest these asylum seekers are too well dressed to deserve our sympathy. Perhaps compassion has its own dress code.
 
In Kabul, more and more of these women, with their dazed and hungry little kids, are finding their way to Hope House. There they sit. And wait. And hope.
 
Over recent weeks the queues have been longer than normal. Word has gone around that Mahboba Rawi is here. 'Mother Mahboba' as they call her, is visiting from Australia, where she now lives and works like a tyrant to raise money for the orphans and widows of Afghanistan.
 
Knowing what it's like to be hungry, lost and traumatised, Mahboba has dedicated her life to making a difference to those she left behind. At the age of 11 she fled Afghanistan on foot, and made it to the refugee camps of Pakistan. Marriage eventually brought her to the safety of Australia. But clearly her heart is in her homeland.
 
Through her Sydney-based charity, Mahboba has raised $2.5million over the past 10 years. Which, in the scheme of things, may not seem like a huge amount. Certainly not after Wednesday's announcement, that the Australian Government will spend more than $1million a week trying to prop up the corrupt and incompetent Afghan army. Nevertheless, with a small amount Mahboba has been able to make big strides.
 
Her two orphanages in Kabul and her various support programs outside the capital, including a school for 200 girls in the Panjshir Valley, have not only changed lives and saved lives, they have
set an example of what is possible.
 
Just before I left Afghanistan I attended the graduation ceremony of widows from a tailoring course run by Mahboba's Promise. Each widow was given her own sewing machine, material and cutting tools. To see how the women lovingly clutched those parcels was to realise what it must be like to receive a gift for the first time in your life. The faces of gratitude were priceless.
 
So too was little Tamin's response when Mahboba cleaned his hands, and said there would be no more shoe-shining. She would try and find a sponsor to send him to school. His eyes filled up with tears, and his grubby face started shining.
 
Virginia Haussegger presents ABC Television news in Canberra.

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Sydney Morning Herald Article

Afghanistan’s Winter – a Looming Crisis in a Stricken Land

Press Release – for Immediate Release - 16 October 2008

Snow and ice are the killers stalking Afghanistan this winter and they are more lethal than bullets and bombs.  Thousands are in danger of freezing to death. Millions face starvation and epidemics of disease.

Last winter was the harshest in living memory and most of the victims were children.
Now droughts, food shortages and civil unrest have left the Afghan people more vulnerable than ever.  Nine million people, a quarter of the population, already struggle for the basics vital to life. 

Mahboba Rawi, the Executive Director of Mahboba’s Promise, says the situation is critical.

“Winter is always harsh, but this year high prices and insecurity have created shortages.  There is no wood, no gas, no food, no water.  People search the streets for rubbish to burn to keep warm.  One woman collected old shoes to burn and the toxic fumes poisoned her and her children.”

Ms Rawi says people require necessities for life.

“They lack warm clothes and shoes.  Kids walk with bare feet in the ice, then they lose their toes.  Those who live in the hills have to walk for miles in the cold every day for access to clean water.”

Mahboba’s Promise was started by Mahboba Rawi, a refugee from Afghanistan and now an Australian citizen.  Mahboba’s Promise is raising money in a Winter Appeal to help the desperate and impoverished in Afghanistan.

To avert a humanitarian crisis action needs to be taken now before extreme weather leaves much of the country inaccessible.

Ms Rawi says “People become isolated in remote areas due to snow and ice. We need to help before the snow falls, but nothing is happening – nobody is doing anything.  When people begin to die then it is too late.  We need to act now.”

Afghan Relief Development officials say the situation is aggravated by the heightened insecurity making it difficult for Aid workers to reach those in need.  Aid workers have become the targets of increasing attacks and a record number have been killed this year.  The dangers have restricted the scale and scope of aid operations.

Mahboba’s Promise is run by Afghans with local knowledge of culture and language.  They can operate under the most difficult circumstances and provide a lifeline for many deemed unreachable by other NGOs.

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Annual and Financial Reports are available on request from the office.  Please email mahboba@mahbobaspromise.org us or call us on 02 9887 1665 if you would like a copy.  http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/05/15/2572107.htm