Afghanistan, war, drought, hunger, refugees.
It's a challenging time for our world.
For children like these, the challenge is just to survive until tomorrow.
For World Vision aid workers, like Robin Kennedy from Melbourne,
the challenge is meeting the needs of so many hungry people.
What you see in the next 10 minutes could be the most important news you receive this year.
You'll see how you can help Afghan children who have no food but weeds,
and families who have no hope of survival unless we help.
And you'll see how World Vision partnership with the United Nations
and other international donors means your gift can feed 10 times as many people.
Arriving in Afghanistan and first impressions is almost hard to plug into
because it's such a challenge on so many levels.
The desperation of individual people, the sadness and misery you can see in people's faces.
And then to talk to individuals, to actually hear people's individual stories is personally very,
I found it perhaps in more than 30 years of my career,
I found it the most challenging thing was to hear people's individual stories.
Food distribution is a complex thing in fact.
First of all there's the criteria, who will receive the food,
if we have food for 10,000 who will be the recipients.
And the recipients will be the poorest of the poor.
They'll be the beggars, they'll be the child-headed households, they'll be the widows.
Kabul itself has 30,000 widows who have been able to access any food over so many years.
Their survival is a remarkable thing.
It'll be those who are disabled, those who are victims of landmines.
So we are targeting the poorest of the poor.
I talk to those people and to hear their stories.
There was Karam Gul who came to the food distribution.
She was one of the lucky ones.
She was on the list.
She had her voucher to get her food and she brought her two boys,
maybe 15, 16 years old, to help her to carry their food out.
She wept from the moment she got there.
She wept for the time she was there.
She wept when we talked and she wept as she left.
Such sadness.
I thought about my son when he was 16, 17, trying to feed kids that age.
They're like a black hole.
The food just keeps going in and here she was with these boys that had been hungry for so long.
And the irony was that not only were they hungry but her boys were blind.
So, so sad to hear how desperate their lives are, not just on that day as it was difficult for me,
but over a long period of time.
This situation has been going on.
The drought is more than four years.
So it's not something new in Afghanistan.
We're talking about a family that no longer has seed to plant.
We're talking about a family that has sold everything.
They've sold the carpet if they had a carpet.
They've sold the pots and pans.
They've sold so much, everything in fact, and their cupboards are now bare.
So for them, I don't know how they get through their day.
I don't know how they manage in their life.
I remember someone commenting that kids out in the field running about and stopping
and digging at the ground look like a normal kid's activity.
But the reality is those kids are seeking something to eat.
These green roots under the snow, under the ground, they pull out these green roots.
They pull out grass if they can find it.
They put it in pots and they cook it.
I guess you'd say cook it.
They boil it up and they eat it.
There's no nutritional value.
In fact, it makes them sick.
They quite often get sick.
Their bellies ache and they vomit that up.
If you've got to eat, and for how long can you be that hungry?
Mothers who are bringing their children to the therapeutic feeding centre know that their
children are at death's door.
I think that Afghan women, like all women, we care for our children.
But they are not hysterical.
They've looked death in the face before.
They've lost other family members.
In Afghanistan it's interesting because the clothing is quite loose.
And so I think that we don't get the pictures that we perhaps have got from other parts
of the world, perhaps from Africa.
But in fact, when the children come in and you see their tiny limbs and you see their
tiny bodies, you get those same pictures, you get that same sense of malnourishment
that we have seen before in famine places.
So for children to come into our therapeutic feeding centre, it's a very simple process.
So when they are referred here, we want to take weight and hide so that we get the percentage.
And if it will be below 70% weight for height, we are going to admit the child in our therapeutic centre.
The child weight is 4.6 kilograms and the height is 63.5 centimetres.
How much should this child weigh?
6.6 kilograms.
They will receive concentrated foods, food supplements, on a regular basis throughout
a 24-hour period, not just your three meals a day, but they'll require that food in small
amounts consistently.
I think that you can immediately see life stimulated in a small body as it receives
the nutrients that it needs.
Even in the eyes you can see that vitality is there.
World Vision has already fed 53,000 families in Afghanistan.
Each family received a 50 kilogram bag of wheat, a month's supply.
We're so grateful to everyone who's made this huge effort possible.
But there's much more we need to do.
And already people are working hard, tilling the soil, preparing the land.
But people have had no seeds to plant.
This means severe food shortages will remain.
The good news is that the United Nations and other international donors have asked World
Vision to distribute 653 tonnes of food.
Packed in 50 kilogram sacks laid end to end, those sacks of life-saving food would stretch
over 12 kilometres.
Over the next year this food will help more than 49,000 people.
It will support them until crops grow and they're back on their feet again.
An exciting part of this program is that people will actually contribute work for their food.
They'll rebuild schools, wells, dams for irrigation.
Bit by bit they will restore their country.
There are three important benefits of this initiative.
Hungry people get food, their community is rebuilt, and these proud Afghan people maintain
their dignity and self-respect.
It's a real partnership between you, World Vision and Afghan families.
The total value of the food we can provide is more than 4 million dollars.
To unlock this grant, World Vision must raise 400,000 dollars.
What this means for you is quite simple.
The value of what you give is multiplied 10 times.
So your gift of 165 dollars provides 1,650 dollars worth of food.
That's enough for four families for the rest of the year.
A gift of 250 dollars multiplied by the 10 times grant provides 2,500 dollars worth of food.
That helps 40 families for the next critical month.
And if you can manage a gift of 1,500 dollars, that will provide 15,000 dollars worth of food.
18 tons of food.
A month's food for more than 1,500 people.
The grant makes your help go further.
This food is available now.
All it needs is your donation so it can be distributed.
Whatever you give will be multiplied 10 times in the food given.
I've seen children being fed.
I've seen children recovering in therapeutic feeding centres.
I've seen people's lives being changed by the food that we distribute.
I've seen shelters that World Vision has provided.
Thousands of tents.
So many things that I'd really like for the people in Australia to be able to see what I've seen so that they will know.
People are surviving.
People are becoming more positive.
They are almost able to believe in a sustained future.
All this life-saving work depends on the support of Australians.
People like Robin can go to Afghanistan and distribute the food.
Our World Vision team can make sure the people who need help most receive it.
But it's people like you, Australians who care.
You unlock the true value of the partnership with the United Nations and our other valued partners.
There is no time to delay.
Families in Afghanistan need food now.
This is the only opportunity you will have this year to feed 10 times more people.
Send your donation now before 30 June and you can also claim it as an effective tax deduction this financial year.
Call 1300 303 440.
Give as much as you can.
Whatever you give will be multiplied 10 times on behalf of the people whose lives you will save.
Thank you and God bless.
What the people of Afghanistan would say and do say to the people of Australia is thank you.
And I have to say that I am embarrassed to receive so many thank yous to the people of Australia.
I'm proud to be an Australian.
People respond so positively when I say that I'm from Australia.
And people are very grateful for all that Australia does for them and how they respond to them.
Thank you.