Mission Eastis a Danish international relief and development organisation, working in Eastern Europe and Asia. Our aim is to deliver relief aid, to create and support long-term development projects and to empower local aid organisations to carry on the work independently. Making no racial, religious or political distinction between those in need, we aim to assist the most vulnerable.

1099 persons asking for help

Taloqan, April 11, 2011.
Yesterday, due to bad weather in Badakhshan making it impossible to fly out of there, we were forced to drive to the other main Mission East base in the North-east of Afghanistan.
This provided us with the great chance of meeting some of the 75 Mission East staff based in the Taloqan office, and of spending a couple of hours in a poor village just outside of Taloqan, now finally getting basic help in terms of clean water, hygiene education and sanitary installations.
Despite encouraging improvements in recent years, with a reduction in infant mortality rates, better access to clean water, and a strong growth in the economy, life expectancy in Afghanistan remains at only 43 years, with only 27 percent of Afghans having access to safe drinking water and 5 percent to adequate sanitation.
Seeing Mission East and our local partner, the ‘Peace Organization’, working jointly on a water and sanitation project in the poor village of Taka Tamest, changing the lives of the 1099 persons there, was another encouraging sign that indeed Afghanistan is moving in the right direction.

Children and their donkeys still have to go to the nearby river to collect water for drinking and washing. Analyses have shown that 30 % of the river water is mud, and that at any rate, the number of microbes in the water is so high that waterborne diseases are epidemic in the area.