By Zuhra Abhar
The Shuhada Organization (http://shuhada.org.af/), founded by Dr. Sima Samar, is the oldest Afghan NGO working in the region, and the largest Afghan woman-led organization. Shuhada was one of the first grantees of Afghan Women Leaders Connect, back in 2003 after the fall of the Taliban. This first grant of several to Shuhada supported nurses and midwives working to provide health care to women in 6 remote villages of Jaghori district in Ghazni, central Afghanistan, a lifeline for these women who had no other access to emergency health care. In this project, educators also provided literacy training.
Dr. Sima reflects: “When I was in a village, where I started my medical practice, I saw a woman who was in dire need of medical help, and there was no one to help her deliver her baby. She was almost dead. I rushed to her and started to help her blood pressure go up by applying infusions and plasma. She started breathing and her pulse was stronger. I delivered her baby, but unfortunately due to the mother’s bleeding, the baby was not alive. But, the young woman was able to recover and now lives happily. She comes to greet me and brings sweets and locally baked bread. I get a sense of relief and happiness that at least I have saved her life.”
A leading authority on health care for Afghan women, Dr. Sima graduated from Kabul University Medical College in 1982. She practiced medicine at a government hospital in Kabul, but after a few months, was forced to flee for her safety to her native Jaghori, Ghazni, where she provided medical treatment to patients throughout the remote areas of Central Afghanistan. In 1984, she fled to Pakistan.
After working as a doctor at the refugee branch of the Mission Hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, and distressed by the total lack of health care facilities for Afghan refugee women, she started a hospital for Afghan refugee women and children in Quetta. Dr. Sima returned to Afghanistan to assume this cabinet post after 17 years in exile in Pakistan, where she founded the Shuhada Organization in Quetta. The Shuhada Organization runs health, education, and income generation projects for women and girls in Afghanistan and those living as refugees in Pakistan. The Shuhada Organization is the oldest Afghan NGO working in the region, and the largest Afghan woman-led organization.
In 1989, Dr. Sima established the Shuhada Organization and Shuhada Clinic. The Shuhada Organization operates 4 clinics and 3 hospitals in Afghanistan, all dedicated to the provision of health care to Afghan women and girls. These health facilities provide services in Bamyan, Ghazni, Ghor and Wardak provinces. Shuhada’s mission and vision is to “strive to realize an aware, prosperous, and healthy society in Afghanistan where quality social services are provided based on the principles of democracy, rule of law, social justice, peace, and non-discrimination.”
In addition, the Shuhada Organization runs nurse, community health worker and traditional birth attendant training programs and reproductive health education projects.The organization opened a Science Institute in Pakistan in 2001 to train young women and men as physician assistants, science teachers, and emergency medical technicians and later on the students have been transferred to the higher Institutions in Kabul. Dr. Sima also has been a leader for education for Afghan women and girls. The Shuhada Organization operates 55 schools for girls and boys in Afghanistan and 3 schools for Afghan refugees in Quetta, Pakistan. During the Taliban regime, Shuhada’s schools in Central Afghanistan were among the few academic girls’ primary schools; the organization’s girls’ high schools were the only high schools that girls were able to attend in the country. The Shuhada Organization also ran underground home school classes for girls in Kabul. Following the collapse of the Taliban, these home school classes became the basis for two above ground schools for girls that now teach 800 students and handed over to the government. In addition, the Shuhada Organization runs English and computer courses, income generation, and adult literacy programs for women in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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