Afghanistan, a Portrait

Several thousand Afghan refugees have been resettled in the United States. This booklet supplements Church World Service's 'Manual for Refugee Sponsorship' (see Refugee Abstracts, Vol. 1, No. 3, September 1982) and provides background information on Afghanistan for prospective US sponsors. There are sections on: Geography; Resources and Livelihood; Peoples and Languages; Religion; Afghan Society and Family; History; Literature; Folklore and Games; and, Food and Diets. There is an analysis of the political events leading to the 1979 Soviet invasion and the refugee exodus. The authors emphasize the importance of the extended family, the role of women, marriage and child-rearing, and discuss CWS programmes in Pakistan. The booklet concludes with an examination of the resettlement process in the United States. Most of the resettled refugees tend to be relatively well-educated and to come from urban, middle-class, families. Integration problems are described with particular reference to language learning, employment, education, medical-dental health, social integration, mental health, and religious aspects.