A 16-year-old inventor in Afghanistan's Khost province is making beautiful, working toys out of the most humble of materials: garbage.
A teen in Afghanistan is making beautiful, working toys out of the most humble of materials: garbage.
Shakirullah lives in Khost province, near the border with Pakistan.
With department stores and Amazon deliveries in short supply, he got resourceful.
The 16-year-old scours dumps and fields of rubble for the raw materials he needs. What looks like refuse to almost anybody else looks like the beginnings of a toy tractor.
Shakirullah draws a schematic for his replica, and then gets to work.
His creations even have working parts, which he proudly demonstrates for reporters.
Many parts of Afghanistan have struggled with scarcity, both before and since the Taliban re-took control of the country in August 2021.
Much of Afghanistan’s foreign assets are now frozen.
In another part of Khost, people use snow to keep their food cool, since there is no other refrigeration.
And half of the country’s population faces acute hunger, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
It is out of that scarcity that people like Shakirullah somehow make art, and toys.
Next up for him? A front end loader. It’ll be a beauty.
