Future Generations (Afghanistan)

Since 2002, Future Generations Afghanistan has strengthened the resourcefulness of Afghan communities. We promote a three-way partnership among communities, external actors, and governments to strengthen local agency and capacity for peacebuilding and community development.

Future Generations Afghanistan focuses on four core activities to learn from and extend Afghanistan's successes for peace:

• Build community capacity for local governance of Afghanistan
• Strengthen rural education and leadership through horticultural training
• Enable Returnees and their receiving communities to meet their long-term needs
• Use the applied research method of Positive Deviance to learn from successful Afghan communities

The organization also has been effective in working to:

• Improve health through women’s training and empowerment
• Increase the literacy of Afghan women through mosque-based and home-based schools
• Integrate literacy and health training for Afghan women
• Build capacity for local governance among a multi-ethnic community on the outskirts of Kabul
• Historically, we have worked in five provinces (Bamyan, Ghazni, Nangarhar, Zabul and Uruzgan), but now our work focuses primarily in Nangarhar Province.

Since 2002, we have enabled community development councils and community action groups create self-help projects, such as water management, small scale transportation, home-based literacy and health courses. Communities have established:

• 365 registered Action Groups with 1,936 members representing local communities and working together to improve governance and meet their basic needs, such as literacy, health and hygiene and income generation
• 933 home and mosque-based classes in literacy, health and income generation for 25,597 beneficiaries, 71% being women and girls
• 114 agricultural workshops for 2,470 farmers
• Youth and sports activities for nearly 5,000 boys and girls
• 80 Community Development Councils (CDCs) and Community Development Plans (CDPs) that prioritize local reconstruction projects, such as wells and springs, schools, roads, bridges and improving local capacity for small scale income generating activities.

Future Generations is guided by an approach that builds the self-sufficiency and independence of communities. The real work and activities are undertaken by locally-hired staff who mobilize volunteers and community action groups.

By increasing the skills and knowledge of local action groups, Future Generations supports each community’s efforts to meet its own needs, thereby fostering ownership of projects and creating an environment of self-sufficiency and sustainability.