Archive: November, 2009
Pakistan faces a “demographic disaster” if it doesn’t address the needs of its young people, So says a new report commissioned by the British Council, which reveals that only 40 per cent of Pakistani children are enrolled in school, and most Pakistani youths despair of their future.
No wonder some Pakistani young people are susceptible to the appeals of radical clerics.
The difference between what is, and what could be, becomes clear when we look at the ongoing work of Greg Mortenson, of Three Cups of Tea fame, who is still building girls’ schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He now has 133 schools in those two countries, and the appeals pour in to his Central Asia Institute daily, from local villagers and educators who are desperate for schools to serve their young people.
The failure of Pakistan’s government to deliver essential services is revealed in the desperate pleas, some handwritten, that were shown to me by Suleiman Minhas (pictured here), the operations manager for Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute office in Islamabad, Pakistan.
“There is no shelter and no proper tent,” wrote one headmaster of a coeducational middle school in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, where an earthquake devastated the area in 2005. Four years later, many students are still studying outdoors, for lack of buildings. Another administrator, from a Girls High and Boys high school outside Muzaffarabad, wrote “Stuents and teachers are sitting outside in open space.”
In both cases the educators pleaded with the Central Asia Institute to help them with prefab buildings. Minhas’s folder is full of such urgent requests. Mortenson’s team paid teachers’ salaries in refugee camps for evacuees from Swat, the valley taken over by Taliban last year and now cleared by Pakistan’s army. In such camps, militants rush to set up social services and hardline religious instruction. Again, Mortensen’s work shows what must be done to prevent such indoctrination, and where Pakistani government officials are failing.
“Peace is never made by politicians, only by people to people,” says Minhas, a former driver who first met Mortenson when he set out to build his first school in Pakistan. Minhas, who plays a big role in Mortenson’s book, decided he wanted to dedicate his life to helping the school project.
Building and staffing schools is clearly a key antidote to the despair evinced in the British Council report, and the Central Asia Institute is showing how it can be done, cheaply and effectively.
During the Christmas season, anyone who wants to learn more about how to help build schools in Pakistan, can visit the Institute’s website at www.ikat.org.
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There's been lots said, correctly, about rampant corruption in th government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
But corruption amongst contractors, both international and Afghan subcontractors, is also rampant.
The concrete hut in this photo was built as a headquarters for the local village protection forces, known as AP3, that patrol roads in Wardak province. Wardak officials told me the contract was let to a local contractor by the US Special Forces team that was training the AP3. No doubt the Special Forces were in a hurry to get the thing built and weren't concerned with supervising the details.
This tiny hut has no water, no electricity, and no latrine. It does have a fence around it built with local stones. The cost, according to the head of Wardak's Provincial Council, who says he saw the contract: $105,000. And four of these headquarters were built. Locals that I spoke were disgusted with the waste of money, not to mention the shoddy building, and said a better headquarters could have been built for $5-10,000.
Think what $400,000 well spent could have accomplished in a strategically important province that lacks roads, electricity, good irrigation systems, cold storage for its fruit growers, and jobs.
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In my column today I write about the Voice of Women Organization in Herat, Afghanistan, which runs shelters for abused women, helps women in prison, and runs workshops to help sensitize men to respect women more in accordance with Islamic values.
The staff of VWO are all remarkable. On the left is founder Suraya Pakzad., whom I profile today. To her right is Safia, who - under the Taliban - managed to keep working with her husband for an NGO that gave small loans to couples; she road on a motorcyle to distribute that aid. Malika, to her right, fled with her family to Iran to escape the Taliban. Wahida, to her right, could no longer study under Taliban rules, until she learned that nurses' training was permitted and enrolled in a a course. Now all work as professionls for VWO, and are hoping the Taliban won't make a comeback.
The woman on the far right doesn't have to worry about such things, since she lives in Philadelpha.
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Anyone who was in Iraq in the worst days finds Kabul incredibly relaxed and peaceful. True, there are more checkpoints and roadblocks than when I was there in May, and more concrete barriers near NATO headquarters where a bomb went off recently.
About 600 UN workers were evacuated this week after suicide bombers invaded a UN guesthouse a few days ago killing five foreign UN workers and 3 locals.
My guesthouse now has armed guards on the roof, more sandbags in front, and more guards shooing away any car that tries to park nearby. A jumpy UN worker ran out last night in her pajamas when she heard a boom of indeterminate origin. I didn’t hear it.
However, the real fear in Kabul right now is of swine flu. All the immigration officers at the airport are masked against dangerous foreigners. Schools and universities have been shut for three weeks.
Mothers in burkas shepherd masked children, and men – for the first time? – are covering their faces with masks. Women in burkas are already protected,.
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