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Many of us are in our 15th year of what was intended to be just one! Raise funds to build one school, that was the plan, a commitment not likely to exceed one year.
It's "that time of year," when people think back and resolve forward. I'm currently reflecting as we tend to do duringThanksgiving. It's also time to send an annual report to volunteers and donors.
Trust in Education began in 2003, when a few friends resolved to raise twenty-five thousand dollars to build a school in Lalander, Afghanistan, the amount I had been told it would cost. We raised close to sixty thousand dollars. Building it required
every dollar we raised.
There's no such thing as a fixed price construction contract in Afghanistan. Every construction contract is renegotiable. If not careful, you'll find yourself in the middle of the stream negotiating to get to the other side.
I visited "our school" when it opened in early 2005 and experienced something I had not before, abject poverty. It was the fifth poorest country in the world where millions were living "day to day". It had the highest infant mortality rate in the world and has been judged to be the worst place in the world for a woman to be born. This proved to be a life altering trip for me.
By 2005 I knew the conditions in Afghanistan were largely of our making. In 1979 the United States began financing the mujahedeen in Pakistan to wage war inside Afghanistan. Why?
According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter, our support of the mujahideen would prompt the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan. Our intention was to "give the Soviet Union its Viet Nam." They invaded and we did.
Ten years after the Russians invaded, they were driven out of Afghanistan. The Berlin wall "came down" shortly therefater. The Soviet Union "disintegrated and dissolved into fifteen separate countries." Three years later in 1992 , we discontinued all humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. "Mission accomplished". Five million Afghans had fled their homes and one million five hundred thousand had lost their lives.
In 1992, t
he warlords we had armed to bring down the Soviet Union were fighting one another for control of the country. Afghanistan had become a failed state.
Thirty- eight years later the fighting continues, and we are once again winding down our military commitment. We must not discontinue providing humanitarian aid to the Afghan people again. Nor should we expect our government to continue its aid.
A Taliban captive reportedly said "Americans have the watches but we have the time." Some of us have been at it for fifteen years and the
number of committed volunteers and donors has grown every year since we began. We are proving the Taliban captive wrong.
I realize many of you know the history that led to your support,but new and potential recruits often don't. They also don't know what this grass roots people to people volunteer based organization has accomplished. Below is a partial list:
* Another school was built in the village of Farza, a
school for girls.
* 8000 solar cookers have been distributed to Afghan families living in refugee camps in and around Kabul.
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3,000 families were taught how use solar cookers and left with two.
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* 2 bridges were built, one over a stream where one young girl had lost her life trying to cross.
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300 children now cross the river without risk every day on their way to school.
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9 shipments of clothing drive donations totaling over 200,000 pounds have been distributed to refugee families, including one million five hundred thousand meals.
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Love the jacket but what's the exchange policy on hats?
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* 10 computer libraries have been established and are being maintained. They are utilized by over 700 children a day.
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The best investment we've made in education to date, computer libraries.
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* 1,000 Khan Academy math videos have been translated into Dari and are available online and in our libraries. A project is underway to translate them into Pashto.
*Our street child sponsorship program continues to grow. We currently have more sponsors than vetted children to sponsor.
Basir and Qudsia find candidates by driving the streets of Kabul. Every child they decide to interview must go through a screening process that takes time.
The sponsorship program is the most effective way to alter the life of a child. It's also the one program where results can be tracked.
The statistics speak for themselves:
122 Sponsored to date:
77 currently in program (43 girls, 34 boys)
4 College Grads
22
High School Grads (14 Currently in College)
Many of these children would not have been able to attend school had they not been sponsored.
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| They put down the shoes and picked up their books. |
Our primary focus today is sponsoring more street children and adding more computer libraries where students can learn on their own time and at their own speed. We will of course continue sending shipments through the Denton program. If there is one thing we have in this country, it's stuff. One may argue over the redistribution of wealth. But, there is no resistance to the effort to redistribute our stuff.
During my second trip to Lalander, a village leader handed me a stack of business cards letting me know that every card represented a person who had come to his home and never came back. He "thought I would do the same".
I told him I would return as long as it was safe for me. Unfortunately, it's too dangerous for me to visit the villagers now. It's difficult for me to blend. One day I may have them make me a burqa.
We currently employ 27 teachers, 3 guards & 2 program directors, all Afghans. They are "running the place" as was always intended. They are on the frontline struggling for basic needs and fundamental rights. We fortunately needn't be.
Trust in Education raises, allocates, and oversees the funds and volunteer time contributed by thousands of supporters. Rest assured your contributions of time and money have been well spent and we'll keep going back.
Seasons Greetings, Happy New Year and belated Thanksgiving.
As we all know, we are among the fortunate.
Budd
ps To avoid bank fees, contributions can be sent to Trust in Education, 985 Moraga Road Suite 207, Lafayette, California 94549
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