The idea to establish an overhead-free charity was Tariq’s vision for a very long time. History of HBT goes back when Tariq Ahmadzai, who was brought up in an intellectual family as a refugee and far from his hometown, has envisioned supporting children through a structured and formal platform. During his school, Tariq helped his parents operate an educational institute for Afghan refugees educating Afghan girls and boys in various fields of live, including providing primary to tertiary education.

When Tariq moved to the US in 2010 to pursue his education, he transformed his vision of supporting the population in Afghanistan by establishing a charity foundation named Help Build Tomorrow (hbt.org)in 2016.

He came together with 20 Afghan American professionals with the idea to support poor refugee children by starting a program to assist vulnerable households, mainly focusing on street-working children who have lost their parents to security incidents.

The core principle that originated out of many gatherings between the group recognized children’s education as an immediate need for Afghanistan. 

To promote educated generations in Afghanistan, targeting orphans and other financially vulnerable children who were restricted from their fundamental education rights by doing child labor and street work.

HBT aims to support these children by sending them to school through financial and social support to them and their families.

Therefore, the group under the leadership of Tariq Ahmadzai pursued this goal by establishing the HBT charity and funding its primary beneficiaries with their own hard-earned money.

During history of HBT, As the cause moved ahead, many joined HBT by donating and supporting the goal of helping vulnerable children and orphans in Afghanistan. In addition, Tariq and other professionals on board of HBT continued to cover all overhead costs of this organization, allowing individual and institutional donor funds to directly support the needs of those in need of education and humanitarian support.

HBT soon hired a team of experts and volunteers to continue this vision in Kabul and other provinces in Afghanistan. The group surveyed, identified, and selected proper beneficiaries and sponsored them to support their education.

To this date, HBT has sponsored 60 kids and their 300 family members, allowing their kids to continue with their school for five and half years. HBT’s vision is to build 34 schools in 34 provinces of Afghanistan that not only provide them free education but support vulnerable children financially to continue their studies and become future leaders and uplift the entire population of the respected region.

The vision will take these kids a long way by helping them graduate from school, pursue higher education, and become future leaders and beacons of their respective communities.

With the influx of Afghan refugees moving to the US under different immigration visa programs; HBT board members and volunteers realized the need to begin its US operations to support newly arrived refugee households by providing English language online learning programs for Afghan women.

To this date, with the help of Islamic Relief, 350 Afghan women benefited from HBT’s English language programs. Each year, we target 50 women learning elementary to advanced English language programs, helping them ease their integration into the US culture and job market. By the success of our English language programs, the demand for this project has been increasing, and HBT is committed to expanding its ESL program in the US, providing the opportunity for more Afghan women to learn English in the United States.  Due to the events unfolding in Afghanistan and living conditions worsening, HBT board members and volunteers 2018 decided to launch its emergency response platform. 

To date, HBT has helped more than 40,000 people in different provinces of Afghanistan with basic living needs and food packages. With the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the democratic Afghan Government in August 2021, HBT’s humanitarian assistance projects substantially expanded. With irregularities in the economic situation in the country post-COVID-19 pandemic and after the Taliban took control of systems in the country, the living conditions of the people worsened.

The number of vulnerable citizens falling below the poverty line and those on the brink of famine and poverty have quadrupled. HBT partnered with the Afghans Living in DC Area (ALDC) community, Afghan Academy, Human First, and other organizations across the United States and launched a fund that is helping thousands of households with their necessities.  HBT is partnering with other organizations to reach as many people as possible. In addition, we have been delivering emergency packages and supporting communities in providing them with food and water.