NGO and NonProfit: Afghan Womens Education Center (AWEC): - AWEC Outreach Program

As young as five or six years old, they are pressed into the workforce to earn income for their families, peddling on the street or working in the shops. They are the street children of Kabul. In this city of 3 millon people you see them everywhere, darting between cars in the city traffic, trying to sell chewing gum to exasperated drivers, shining shoes in the street, or selling phone cards or plastic bags, anything to help provide for their families. They are significant contributors to their families' welfare and in some cases are the primary breadwinners. The economic realities of trying to survive in Afghanistan means that their parents and the shopkeepers who employ them are dependent on child labor and income to get by. It also means they are often the ones most resistant to the idea of these children leaving the streets to go to school. AWEC seeks to address these issues through their outreach program , going into the homes and neighborhoods of these children to work directly with their parents, extended families, and the shopkeepers that employ them to provide the children a chance to break out of the cycle of illiteracy and poverty that pervades the country.