June began with a celebration of World Children Day. We organized a small event at Mehan Orphanage in the afternoon. The children had lots of fun playing various games together and enjoying some refreshments.

We had two birthday celebrations this month. The first was Aazita’s on June 6th funded by her sponsor Terry Cardwell and the other birthday was Sunbol’s on June 29^th funded by her sponsor James Herzog. Birthdays parties are special gifts to the children by their sponsors because many have never celebrated their birthdays. Some do not even know their exact birth dates. The AFCECO staff has tried to contact their families and relatives to find out their birth dates but we are not always successful. In both of the birthday parties we had a skype call with the sponsor which made the birthday extra special both for the child and the sponsor. Here is the album of the birthday pictures:

We are very excited and thrilled to report to you that we held an inaugural ceremony to officially announce the opening of the NewMehan Orphanage on April 2^nd. In addition to dignity guests from embassies and international community, there were also guests from many organizations including faculty from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, as well as members of the community who over the years have participated in AFCECO programs, volunteers and journalists. Of course along with the well wishers many of the AFCECO staff and children themselves attended. AFCECO Management team, Manizha, Mahbooba and Pashtana addressed the crowd, giving their prospective of being the first children to have been raised in the orphanage program. The story of our two amazing children, Negina who is the first female conductor of Afghanistan and Madina, the first oboe player of Afghanistan were profiled. Founder of AFCECO, Andeisha Farid also addressed the crowed followed by Mrs. Nurjehan Mawani, Diplomatic Representative Aga Khan Development Network, Afghanistan, Counselor Philip Lupul of the Canadian Embassy and Dr. Ahmad Naser Sarmast, the founder and director of Afghanistan National Institute of Music. The ceremony ended with great performance by our music students.

May was a very busy month for our children with guests and friends visiting our orphanages as well as other exciting programs.

We are extremely honored to have been recipients of this year’s Memory Project for the second time, the first time being in 2013. The Memory Project is a US nonprofit organization that invites art teachers and their students to create portraits for youngsters around the world who have faced substantial challenges. They aim to make portraits to help the children feel valued and important, to know that many people care about their well-being, and to act as meaningful pieces of personal history in the future. This project provides the art students an opportunity to creatively practice kindness and global awareness. For doing this they receive photos of children and teens from global charities operating residential homes, schools, and care centers in a number of different countries every year.