According to the 2005 National Disability Survey of Afghanistan, one in every five households in Afghanistan has at least one family member who is disabled. This is a result of 30 years of war, landmines, disease and poverty.

Since 1986 Sandy Gall's Afghanistan Appeal (SGAA) has trained Afghan professionals to provide artificial limbs and other mobility aids for more than 25,000 people with disabilities and provided physiotherapy treatment for over 60,000 patients with temporary and permanent disabilities.

Activities were initially based in Peshawar, Pakistan where there were over 1 million Afghans living in refugee camps in the 1980s and 1990s. SGAA gradually moved its activities inside Afghanistan from 1991 onwards and set up two main centres in Jalalabad in 1993 and Kabul in 1996. Since 2006 SGAA has signed a partnership agreement with Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and its activities are now merged in a community based disability programme which works in 13 provinces.

Since 2006 SGAA has signed a partnership agreement with Swedish Committee for Afghanistan so that is activities are now merged in a community-based programme known as Rehabilitation for Afghans with Disabilities (RAD).  RAD works in 13 provinces to identify people with different types of disability and offer them a range of services including home-based training, physical rehabilitation, education, skills training and business loans.

Hashmatullah’s story

The boy in the picture is Hashmatullah. He and his father were walking through Darulaman (a suburb of kabul), Hashmatullah in front, when the father shouted: 'Look out, there's a mine !'

The words were no sooner out of his mouth then there was a terrific explosion right beside Hasmatullah, wounding him in both legs and seriously injuring his father who died two days later. By some miracle, Hasmatullah survived but he lost almost the whole of his leg. It was amputated just below the hip and half of his leg, amputated above the knee in what is known as an AK.

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