11 July 2012
During my stay in Ljubljana I visited the Asylum camp, where refugees are staying and waiting to receive residential permit. There I met several Afghan refugees and talked to them about their situation and condition here in Slovenia. The place provided for the refugees is quite good and they have adequate facilities comparing to the territory they are coming from. But unfortunately the government of Slovenia is not acting actively in the case of refugees and the government is not really going behind the cases of refugees. This was a criticism of almost all the refugees because after ten or twelve months they receive a response which is either negative or only a temporary residence permit for one year or two. That’s why refugees are concerned and nervous about.
I became very happy to see how some organizations and some people are assisting refugees to get the residential permit and to be settled in Slovenia easily. In the asylum camp I met one distinguished lady who is working for Slovenian Philanthropy in her free time.
I found this place very proper to introduce our activities in Afghanistan, the assistance and the relief we provide for Afghan refugees who are coming back home, to Afghanistan. I explained HELP international NGO’s activities in Herat, Afghanistan. In fact I told everyone about our major project that we are implementing in Herat “Repatriation, Technical Vocational and educational training for Afghan returnees and destitute families coming back to AFG”, funded by European Commission and German government, for more info you can contact ( – ) or you can write to horn@help-ev.de“> horn@help-ev.de, Aslamy@help-ev.de“> Aslamy@help-ev.de andtaheri@help-ev.de“> taheri@help-ev.de.
Consequently, one Afghan refugee staying in this asylum camp for more than one year and receiving two times negative response from the Slovenia government about his residential permit became keen to go back to Afghanistan and through HELP’s program. It was a pleasure for me to welcome him and do my best to have him back home to Afghanistan and in our project for refugees. Here remains the coordination with Slovenian government and Afghan Embassy for preparation of some documents that lady from Philanthropy took the responsibility to do it. I hope we receive the response soon from the authorities so that our Afghan refugee can join HELP’s project in Afghanistan. HELP will accept not only himself but his family who is staying in Afghanistan. After his arrival he can invite his family from Ghazni and join our program in Herat. During the training he and his family will be accommodated in HELP’s family center.
Hereby I wholeheartedly thank to the lady from Philanthropy and other colleagues who helped me and this Afghan refugee to be in touch and to reach to this important decision.
Zabiwollah Monib