Articles & Press Releases

Swedish Parliamentarian visited northern projects

Mazar-e-Sharif, July 28, 2010

Mrs Sahlin visited SCA's orthopedic workshop and physiotherapy clinic.
Photo: Per Olsson

The leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party Mrs Mona Sahlin headed the Swedish delegation visit to SCA in Mazar-e-Sharif on 28 July. SCA briefed Mrs Sahlin and the delegation on development works financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

Mrs Mona Sahlin expressed her concerns on capacity building of Afghan government, education for girls and inspected the activities in the orthopedic workshop and physiotherapy clinic operated by SCA in Mazar-e-Sharif hospital, where Mrs Sahlin met and discussed the rehabilitation of disabled people with patients and SCA technicians.
The event was part of her visits to the major Sida development partners in the northern provinces.

Midwifery school established in Samangan

Samangan/Aybak, July 28, 2010

Photo: Makhfi Azizi

Pregnancy and poor maternal health is still claiming 1600 deaths for every 100,000 live births, giving Afghanistan the second worst maternal mortality rate in the world. With such a high number of deaths more focus and funding are needed to give Afghan mothers and children a chance to survive. Today SCA inaugurate a new midwifery school in Samangan. » Read more...

Civilians casualties is on rise

Kabul, July 15, 2010

Mohammad Aslam was killed in a gun battle between afghan police and anti government forces in May. He was a tenth grade student at SCA Alibaba Model School in Paktika province and is one of the 1047 killed afghan civilians in the first six months of 2010. » Read more...

Report; Do children learn in Afghan schools?

Kabul, June 23, 2010

Students in a Community Based Education class in Takhar province.
Photo: Magnus Forsberg

A study by SCA shows that students in SCA supported schools performs better compared to students in government schools. And a very promising finding is that students in SCA Community Based Education (CBE) classes do better and even excel over the students in the larger SCA Model Schools (Model Schools = better equipped and resourced schools). An explanation for this is good teacher-students relation as a unique characteristic of CBE classes.

Currently SCA support 45 Model schools. Additionally, SCA provides support to around 1100 classes of CBE, where more than half of the students are girls.

Read more and download the full report » Read more...

Peter Brune new Secretary General

Stockholm/Kabul, June 18, 2010

Mr. Peter Brune from Sweden was today appointed as new Secretary General of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan.

Mr. Brune has long experience from working on executive position for non-for-profit organizations. On his last assignment he was senior advisor for a small arms control program in Nicaragua in Central America, led by United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Mr. Brune has a background as a teacher (he took his master in 1989) and has also been a researcher at Freiburg University in Germany. Mr. Brune is 47 years old, married since 18 years with Carin Brune who is working at Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) in Stockholm. They have four children.

Mr. Brune replaces Mr. Torbjorn Pettersson who recently was selected as the Swedish Ambassador to Afghanistan.

SCA Info Unit
Phone: +93(0)700 078 103

Using the community to build
acceptance for disabled students

Kabul, June 5, 2010

The comprehensive approach in SCA’s rehabilitation program (RAD) has led to a successful integration of children with disabilities into mainstream schools.

A case study by SCA’s Fanny Verwoerdt, Special and Inclusive Education Technical Advisor, shows that acceptance is crucial for the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schools. After acceptance is met capacity building of the teachers is the second most important.

Also a raised awareness amongst parents and community members and building the capacity of mainstream school staffs are contributing not only to an inclusive environment in school, but an inclusive environment in the community as a whole. The Afghan government has a key role to create sustainability, which can only be created if they are involved and informed from the start.

Click on the link to download the case study (PDF) Supporting Learners with Disabilities

More midwives presented to the rural communities

Maidan Shahr, May 23, 2010

On May 23 the latest batch of midwives graduated from the SCA’s Community Midwifery School in Maidan Shahr, Wardak province. So far 151 midwives have graduated from SCA Midwife schools which have successfully contributed in decreasing the children and mothers mortality rate in Afghanistan.

Mamorak village receives its first midwife

The newly graduated midwife Ms. Rahima returns to her village. » Read more...

SCA's Secretary-General appointed
new Swedish ambassador to Afghanistan

Stockholm, May 20, 2010

The Swedish Government today appointed the Secretary-General of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, Torbjörn Pettersson, as Sweden's new Ambassador to Afghanistan.

Press release from Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs

Lack of funding for higher education in Afghanistan

Kabul, April 15, 2010

Higher education is the backbone for development in any country while in Afghanistan the attention from the donor countries has rather been on constructions of schools or short term trainings.
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan is the only non-governmental organisation in Afghanistan facilitating a Master Programme in Educational Development and Research (MAP). » Read more...

Newsletter 5/2009-10

Kabul, April 8, 2010

The SCA Newsletter follows the Persian calendar and in this years last edition (No 5, 1388-89) SCA Newsletter highlights disabled peoples situation.
780 000 people in Afghanistan suffer from severe disablity. The majority of people with disability are children in the age 0-14 year. Through Community based Rehablitation disabled can be supported to gain access to education, public services, and jobs.

Click here to download the newsletter as a PDF