KABUL - Established in 2008, Shamsa Children's Village has now become a peaceful home for orphans and abandoned children as well as vulnerable women in a permanent family environment in the Afghan capital city of Kabul.
Maryam Gailani, the founder of the center and the Adela Foundation, provides financial support for the orphanage, which currently houses 130 children of which 50 are girls, according to Nadera Kharoot, the principal of the Shamsa Children's Village refuge.
"We are witnessing tragic and deadly incidents in Afghanistan. We're accommodating a new orphan every day. Maryam Gailani and her honored family's concept was to urgently establish such a shelter to help parentless children feel comfortable and peaceful," principal Kharoot told Xinhua recently.
Highly proud of calling her orphanage a "mini-Afghanistan," she said a number of deserving children were unbiasedly collected from around the country through a board within the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled and sent to the orphanage, aimed at giving them the feeling and sense of a real and peaceful home.
Children of the secure center which provides academic studies, located in the Qasaba vicinity of the 15th municipality district of Kabul city, are not only enrolled in private and government schools free of charge, but are also provided with complementary subjects such as English language, computer programming and holy Quran studies, inside the 24-hour dormitory.
They are also regularly taken on outdoor recreational trips.
"The Chinese embassy has been supporting Shamsa Children's Village in establishing a reading room and has provided books to the children here," Kharoot said.
According to Kharoot, Sino-Afghan relations in recent years have deepened and been elevated to a higher level thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013. The initiative has provided Shamsa Children's Village with the facilities to make children's dreams a reality.
One grade-5 student, Shahab, from Parwan, a province north of Kabul, who attends the Ufoq-e-Sabz private school, said he was delighted to live and study in the orphanage.
"My father became a drug addict in Iran and died after returning home. My mother married another man and no one was looking after me. I was sent here, and through the help of this center, I am hopeful for a brighter future," said Shahab, adding that he hoped to become a doctor in the future.
Pari Gul, a grade 7 student who lost her father to a suicide attack said her mother remarried and could not support her, so her cousin took her here.
Each child becomes part of a 12-member family of brothers and sisters at the center which is set to expand to accommodate more children.
The center not only helps orphans, but also aids vulnerable women who would have nowhere to go otherwise.
Nasima, a widow and mother of four children said she works as a foster mother in the orphanage. "Taliban insurgents killed my husband and I now work as a foster mother here. I have three daughters with me here but my son is in another orphanage," she said.
Kharoot urged all national and international donors to cooperate with the orphanage as it plans to widen its activity and help orphans around the country.
"We plan to travel to provinces and identify the needy children on our own to take them to the center, if we gain more assistance," she said.
Expressing her heartfelt appreciation for China's assistance, including the latest donation to the orphanage center, she said that China and Afghanistan are true friends.
The Chinese embassy has donated lap-top computers, schoolbags, notebooks, toys and some other necessities, as well as providing a well-equipped library.
The embassy has also funded a wide-capacity water reservoir and rebuilt the center's boundary wall. (Xinhua)