Background

Women & Youth Future Assist (WYFAO) is a non-profiting, non–governmental and non–political organization that is mainly involved in humanitarian and developmental activities and serves the people in need. WYFAO was founded back in 2016 by a group of young Afghan professionals with high spirit of helping and shaping lives in Afghanistan. WYFAO was established to play a prominent role in addressing the actual needs of poor people and enable all Afghans speak for their rights and have an enabling environment for their development and prosperity.

Vision:

WYFAO’s vision is to see an Afghanistan where communities are:

Informed, educated, cooperative, collaborative, resilient, self-helping who can resolve their social and economic challenges on their own and withstand the hardships of time.

Mission:

WYFAO’s mission is to reach out to people especially in rural areas of Afghanistan and provide social services, build their capacity and promote participative approaches to respond to social and economic challenges and provide humanitarian assistance in times of need.

Focus Areas:

Social activities and community outreach

Capacity building and professional services

Humanitarian assistance and emergency response

Sectors:

Health and Nutrition

Education and Technology

Research and Development

Strategic Objectives:

• To work with Afghan women and youth for development through motivation and mobilization.
• To build the capacity of Afghan women and youth to speak for their rights.
• To help fight unemployment across the country.
• To increase Afghan youth access to basic and higher education programs through providing short and long-term educational services.
• To provide formal education, community/Home-based schooling system and legal and peace building education.
• To increase Afghan youth interest in adopting modern technology.
• To promote volunteerism in community.  
• To increase Afghan people access to their basic human rights, justice and peace building programs through awareness.
• To undertake any emergency and relief activities.
• To increase knowledge of local people in public health, nutrition and hygiene.

Legal Status and Registration:

WYFAO is a legal entity, registered with the Ministry of Economy under registration no 3931. Besides Ministry of Economy, it is also registered with Ministry of Information & Culture (Directorate of Youth Affairs), Ministry of Public Health, USAID, UNGM, UNOCHA, GHC and other local and international consortiums. Registration with Agency Coordinating Body for Afghanistan Relief (ACBAR) is in progress and will be completed soon.

Values:

• WYFAO’s activities are centered on core organizational values that drive it towards achievement of its strategic objectives. The core values are but not limited to the following:
• WYFAO believes in gender equality, provides equal opportunity for everyone irrespective of their gender.
• Integrity, objectivity, due care and trust lies at the center of the WYFAO’s activities.
• Teamwork and collaboration to achieve project and strategic goals fairly.
• Transparency and accountability in all activities.
• Having introduced WYFAO briefly, in the following sections, focus areas, organizational structure and experience will be presented in detail.

Focus Areas:

As stated in the previous section, WYFAO mainly focusses its activities in the following areas.

• Social activities and community outreach
• Capacity building and professional services
• Humanitarian assistance and emergency response

Social Activities and Community Outreach:

• As far as social activities are concerned, WYFAO has been regularly working with communities in number of provinces i.e. Kabul, Paktika and Helmand, to mobilize youth to participate in wide range of communal activities. Leading and mobilizing communities to undertake various activities is actually a great and tested way of tapping into their potential and enabling them rely on their own to a great extent. WYFAO uses gathering people for various social activities as a means to complement its other focus areas. Social activities that WYFAO has undertaken so far are but not limited to the following.
• WYFAO has close contact with provincial youth councils of volunteers throughout the country. These volunteers’ youth councils consist of two members (male and female) representing each and every district of the provinces in detecting problems, elaborating opportunities, specifying challenges and recommending of solutions across the community.
• Spring season (March & April) is the season of plantation in Afghanistan. In this season, every year WYFAO runs a huge campaign across several provinces, mobilizes youth (volunteers) to plant trees and help spread greenery and thus help in protection of the environment.  In the past several years, it has been observed that communities with which WYFAO work closely have developed a great sense of responsibilities towards the habitat and environment.  They not only plant trees but voluntarily help local authorities in the protection and growth of them as well.
• In close collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Information, every year WYFAO holds a function where young and emerging talents from different professions and walks of life participate. The participants exchange views on different topics and youth with distinct achievements are awarded. WYFAO has successfully held five such functions between 20016 and 2020.
• Due to traditional and patriarchal culture of Afghanistan, women and girls are usually deprived of their basic rights to education and work. The problem worsens as we move from main urban to rural areas. Women and girls are usually victims of forced marriages, honor killings and other atrocities. WYFAO has been fighting such evils at grassroots level by mobilizing youth to stand up and say NO to such evils. Fortunately, religious leaders and community leaders now nod to support what we stand for. In the communities where WYFAO has its presence, it has left a great impact in eliminating such evils from societies.
• With its volunteers, WYFAO usually runs free camps in winter to help students especially girls in their studies for free. In rural areas, usually the quality of schooling is not very good hence; students hardly compete with students of urban areas in finding their ways to quality universities. Free boot camps of WYFAO has helped many hidden potentials in the rural areas blossom and make their ways to their dream universities. WYFAO really takes pride in its achievements in this focus area.
• Afghanistan being a war-torn and poor country with a huge employment gap in the society, youth usually turn to drugs and crimes to meet their ends meet. In collaboration with other grass-root institutions, such as Community Development Councils and health sector players, WYFAO run campaigns through its volunteers to gather drugs addicts, help them recover through rehab and integrate them back into the society and start a normal and dignified life.

Capacity Building and Professional Services:

WYFAO has professionals in various areas such as education and schooling, monitoring and evaluation, information technology, English language, gender mainstreaming, management, accounting and project management. In this area, WYFAO collaborates with other professional institutions and client organizations to plan and conduct professional trainings for intended audience. So far, it has conducted a wide range of trainings for different organizations; and is committed to continue to do so in future as well. As part of the professional services, WYFAO also takes on research and M&E activities for different organizations. It has professional M&E experts with profound experience in conducting social researches.

Humanitarian Assistance and Emergency Response:

Afghanistan is a country that has been engulfed by war and poverty for the last forty years. Apart from war and consistent poverty, natural disasters such as earthquake, drought, flooding, landsides, malnutrition, communicable diseases and epidemics also happen from time to time that leave hundreds of thousands of people in desperate need of emergency help. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity. It may, therefore, be distinguished from development aid, which seeks to address the underlying socioeconomic factors, which may have led to a crisis or emergency. WYFAO, in collaboration with other humanitarian organizations and donors have long been engaged in such activities and have developed special expertise in carrying out projects of humanitarian assistance and emergency response. WYFAO pays serious attention to the challenges on different levels that impede delivery and disbursement of human aides. The challenges normally are but not limited to the following:

• Access to funds
• Method of delivery
• Access to communities
• Technical and human resources
• Collaboration with other agencies
• Humanitarian aids and conflict
• Corruption in disbursement of aids

Accountability, quality and performance in humanitarian actions

WYFAO has learned a great deal since its foundation and has widely improved the effectiveness of its aid management and emergency response framework. For access to adequate funds, WYFAO regularly engages with donors and other key players to ensure that enough funds are available for emergency response. Along with its paid workers, WYFAO has developed a wide network of volunteers that is always ready to jump in and help in distribution of aid materials to the people in need. The aid workers, volunteers, community leaders, religious leaders and grass-root institutions such as community development councils at village level have proven effective instruments for access to the villages, IDPs and/or returnees camps.  By close collaboration with community elders and grass-root institutions WYFAO has been very successful in handling conflicts, ensuring transparency, accountability, quality and performance in wide range of humanitarian actions.

Competitive Advantage of WYFAO:

WYFAO has got the following main competitive advantages which makes it one of the most reliable, performant, transparent and quality organization to work with.

Unlike other NGOs, WYFAO has a great number of volunteers who are ready to jump and help people in need without any pay. This is one of the most valuable assets that WYFAO has in its possession since its foundation.

WYFAO has a strong aid management framework in place that ensures transparency, accountability, timeliness and quality in aid disbursement.

WYFAO has a strong rapport with grass-root institutions, villagers, community leaders and religious scholars in rural areas especially in south and southeast provinces of Afghanistan.