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“The kitchen garden course could save my children from dying,” says Zarmina*, who lives in a small village in the Central Highlands of Afghanistan. She is a beneficiary of IAM’s […]

“Now, I am able to help future presidents.” These are the words of Abdul Shokor an International Assistance Mission (IAM) employee who never imagined he would one day be an […]

When Zahra and her family were forced to leave their home because of conflict, they were worried about how they would make ends meet. When the Mazar Livelihoods and Development Project came to their community, Zahra was selected to be a teacher of embroidery for other women. Now, she is able to help her family and other people in her community. Get the full story here!

Sadiqa struggled to best help her son, Aziz, who has a psychosocial disability. It wasn’t until they came to IAM’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Centre that they started seeing some real changes. Read more about their story, and the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Project, here.

Countless new mothers and babies have lost their lives in villages in the Central Highlands because of dangerous traditional practices and a lack of access to medical care. Now, thanks […]

Building resilience in staff You don’t have to experience a traumatic event first-hand to experience its impacts in your daily life. People who work closely with those who have experienced […]

They never imagined life would end up like this. No electricity, no food security, no work. Even hope for the future is hard to find, when access to clean water, […]

Meet some of our Silk Road English Centre students Abu-zar* has tried almost all of the English courses in Mazar-e-Sharif, but says that IAM’s Silk Road English Centre (SREC) is […]

Composting latrines make a big difference in reducing transferable disease and providing soil nutrients in Afghanistan’s Central Highlands. Read more here!

We value language learning and see it as an important part of our work. So, why do we do it?
Perhaps the most practical reason for learning a local language is for work purposes. When we speak the local language, we can more fully understand different situations: what is going on within communities, what people are really feeling, and when there are hesitancies or various cues from people that may be difficult to pick up on through a translator. There have certainly been development projects that have failed because of the lack of local knowledge, as well as what is going on at the ground level. However, there are other reasons why we value learning the language here, that go beyond the immediate practicality of being able to work in the local language.