We wish to set up a small in-home recording studio at the new home of Mehan Orphanage that besides being a rehearsal room for our music students it would help them record their music and broadcast over Internet. Nearly 30 girls and boys from our orphanage study music, both traditional central Asian and western orchestral instruments at Afghanistan National Institute of Music. Our female musicians are now members of Zohra Orchestra, Afghanistan’s first all-female orchestra. This orchestra has performed on world’s prestigious stages including World Economic Forum in Davos.

An archaic culture discourages girls from appearing in public, at AFCECO the girls break tradition and perform in front of large audiences; this nonviolent act strengthens every girl. Thanks to Kabul Dance Studio that offered free dance lessons to over 30 girls in 2010, which then encouraged us to establish our own dance studio in Mehan Orphanage. Since then, our youngest dance performers touched every single heart in the audience as they were performing in various events. They have learned to perform very complex traditional attan dance that enquires stamina and timing you’d expect from professional dance theater. Our dance team are stunningly beautiful, too, especially accentuated by their colorful and vibrant traditional Afghan dresses. We need to renew and upgrade most parts of the studio to meet all the requirements our girls need.

Artworks has been an integral part of our orphanages for years. We have an art room in Mehan Orphanage where children used to receive professional instruction in drawing, watercolor, pastel and oil painting. This is one way the children gain marketable skills and also reclaim their heritage and culture. Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford to keep our art instructor this year which disrupted the whole program. Your support of the children's artwork will sustain this program as these young artists develop. Many of the paintings done by our older students have been sold and we need other students to produce more paintings to be sold to help increase revenue for the program.

Today, AFCECO is completely self-sustained and run by a team of graduates, and they make up almost all of the staffing of orphanages, who teach, do maintenance, payroll, communications with public, outreach and other duties. Our graduates are tremendously devoted to AFCECO, since they were raised in the orphanages. Who better than these young Afghans to rise up and be trained to lead AFCECO? They more than anyone in the world understand the value of AFCECO. Out of this growing pool of young leaders, we have selected some of them to be part of a Management Team. We need a reserved fund to help them improve their English language and computer skills and get training in accounting, non-profit management, IT and Child Sponsorship Program.

One crucial element of AFCECO programs is to develop physical fitness and character building, team building skills in all its children, girls as much as boys. Because of security and cultural restrictions outside the orphanages, our girls have very few opportunities to build healthy bodies and develop such skills as only athletics can provide. We have a relatively big lawn at the new home of Mehan Orphanage which has enough space to build a basketball, badminton and volleyball courts. We required a fund to get the required equipment and sportswear for girls and also hire a martial art master to train them in karate and martial art.