About PARSA
PARSA gives Afghan leaders the support they need to effect change in their communities.
PARSA’s mission is to train and develop Afghan leaders who support Afghan communities and civil society by providing and facilitating innovative and impactful programs. PARSA envisions an Afghanistan led by committed Afghan leaders who are dedicated to and capable of caring for all members of society.
PARSA has been working at the grassroots level in Afghan communities since 1996. We have consistently evolved over the years to meet the changing needs of the people we support. We believe strongly in empowering visionaries who want to make positive changes in Afghan communities, and the programs we take on are led by a PARSA leader with a vision.
Our Roots
Over the past 27 years PARSA has been supported by a wide community of small donors. This grassroots support has allowed us to be highly creative in program development and to focus on the issues that are most important to us. Some examples of our work:
- Taking the lead in the NGO community in advocating at different levels of government to initiate change in social protection programs that serve the disabled, destitute, and orphans. In particular PARSA earned recognition for our role in advocating the improvement of conditions in government orphanages across the country.
- Recognizing the need for the improved training of social workers and running training programs to fill this need, as well as implementing economic programs so that impoverished citizens have skills they can rely upon to achieve economic independence.
- Working with the Afghan Red Crescent Society to rehabilitate and modernize the Marastoons or “places to find help”, an Afghan cultural tradition of social protection for vulnerable people.
- Initiating youth leadership programs including the Afghan Scouts and PARSA Youth Mentors that train youth to solve challenges that face their communities.
PARSA implements programs that focus on three areas and are adaptable according to specific needs: youth leadership, economic empowerment, and social protection. Our work is diverse and we value strong integration between our programs. PARSA’s approach is effective in Afghanistan because of an organization-wide practice of anchoring program implementation in the Afghan cultural and situational context that creates ownership for PARSA initiatives at all levels of the organization.
We have our community of grassroots donors to thank for allowing us to remain creative and highly responsive to the needs of the communities we support over the last quarter century. Looking ahead, PARSA will continue to expand our programs working at the community level to Build Healthy Afghan Communities, and we are grateful to our supporters and dedicated staff for making this possible.