Climate change activities from a girls’ school in Afghanistan

In the spring of 2021 a girls school from Afghanistan also participated in “Climate Change and Us” project. It was very inspiring to see them learning about climate change and sharing their knowledge with their community.

The students feel that climate change is a highly important issue for them because extreme weather instances impact the lives of people living in the IDP camp very much. For example dirty lakes and water pollution around the school makes it difficult to get clean water. At the camp, burning coal in winter season for heating the rooms is a big problem for air quality and extreme weather and increasing temperatures in the summer are impacting the lives of people more and more.

The students in the group had their first sessions of Climate Change and Us project where they got to know more about the harmful effects of climate change. They are eager to learn more about it and start collecting stories from their community.

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As further activities the students organised a tree planting activity in their school, did a trash cleanup in their community and inspired other people in their community to care more about the environment and their health.

We want to congratulate these brave young girls for their courage and hard work. Well done!

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Cooking Afghan Curry and Eggplant Bolani at our school

In this video we show you how to cook Biryani rice, Bolani, Peeraki, Afghan curry, salad, Chakni and fruit chart!

The dishes we cook in the video is mostly cooked for random lunches and dinners, however, the rice dish and Afghan curry (various types) are also considered must for all afghan special occasions e.g: weddings, parties, hospitality etc.

In Afghanistan, girls of student age are quite keen to help their mothers cook delicious dishes as you watched in the video. We unfortunately do not run cooking classes arranged for the students due to insufficient possibilities. It could be a great initiative for the future.

Recipes for the Curry and Bolani:

 

Afghan Curry
Ingredients:

• 1 kg Chicken pieces, skin removed
• Cooking oil 3-4 tbsp
• Fresh tomatoes ½ kg
• Garlic 3-4 cloves
• Fresh pepper 4pieces
• Thick Yoghurt ½ kg
• Small piece of ginger peeled
• 1 heaped spoon of coriander powder
• ½ spoon of seasoning

Instructions:

1. Pour oil in a cooking pot, add pieces of chicken to the heated oil.
2. Stir the chicken pieces in the pot, add garlic, add small cut pieces of fresh pepper, add coriander powder, add cut tomatoes, add seasoning, add ginger pieces, salt and thick yoghurt. Now add a glass of water .Stir again until all the ingredients added to cooking pot get well mixed.
3. Now heat it for around 12 minutes – (medium heat)
4. Turn heat off and delicious Afghan chicken curry should be ready. You may check the chicken pieces for softness and may cook if for five more minutes if the chicken is not as much cooked as you may like.
5. Sprinkle a handful of chopped coriander on curry as garnish.

 

Eggplant Bolani
Ingredients:

• ½ kg eggplant
• Thick Yoghurt ½ kg
• Garlic 3 cloves
• Cut Tomatoes ½ kg
• Salt (as needed)
• Fresh pepper 2 pieces
• Fresh chopped coriander for garnish

Instructions:

1. Peel off eggplant and cut into equal slices
2. Place the pieces of eggplant in a plate – Add some salt to the uncooked eggplant and leave for 3 minutes
3. Now, pour cooking oil into a frying pan, turn the heating on and add eggplant pieces to it to cover the surface of the frying pan (make sure the eggplant water in the plate is not used).
4. Leave the eggplant for 5 minutes on medium heat.
5. Now remove the fried eggplant from the frying pan and add cut tomatoes, chopped garlic and fresh pepper and 1 tbsp of salt to the same oil in the pan.
6. Stir well until it is turned into paste.
7. Now add the fried eggplant to the paste and stir carefully until the eggplant pieces are well covered with the paste containing tomato, garlic, pepper and salt.
8. Use thick yoghurt and chopped coriander as garnish.
9. Enjoy! 🙂

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