Category Archives: Highs and lows of Afghanistan

Justin Byworth sends his final blog from Afghanistan

At first glance Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, seems to be a world of barriers and barbed wire.  Seeing past all the security apparatus here, Kabul does give a unique window into Afghanistan’s turbulent past and uncertain future as well as a vibrant sense of day-to-day life for 4 million Afghans.

The dilapidated palace of Afghanistan’s last King in the 1970s, the bombed and burnt-out shell of the Ministry of Defence from the Soviet-backed era of the 1980s, huge and ornate new but empty houses built from profits of mysterious origin, the press and the pigeons of old Kabul, the smoky smell of kebabs cooking, and the intricate network of poorer homes hanging on to the steep rocky mountainsides all around.

Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital

The altitude means it’s cooler here and afternoons have brought thunderstorms and the fresh, familiar smell of rain on warm tarmac.  All so different from the western provincial city of Herat and remote, rural Badghis where I’ve spent the last week visiting World Vision projects.

Challenges ahead

I’m in Kabul for meetings with government and other agencies to get a national level view of Afghanistan to complement what I’ve seen through the eyes of children, mothers and communities.  If less inspiring and heartbreaking, it’s equally fascinating in trying to make sense of this incredible country so full of potential for good and for ill.

Flashback: Meeting Mohamed, a Shura in rural Bagdhis

Seeing Afghanistan through the eyes of national government demonstrates both how far things have come in the last few years of relatively stable government and how far they still have to go.  Huge efforts are under way to build the human capacity for the most basic of services:  immunisation, nutrition, midwives, water, roads, financial services, locally elected and accountable groups to plan and manage community development.

Wandering the long winding corridors and courtyards of government ministries it’s easy to see the challenge for national policies and strategies to bring changed reality in what’s another world of the remote valley village of Mohamed, the Shura leader whose house I had tea in on Monday.

Security is another challenge. As one official says, “There’s no clear opposite side to negotiate with”.  The heavy international and military dominated presence brings both advantages and disadvantages.  The development investment and relative stability of the last decade cannot be underestimated; the ‘uniforms’ though are an obvious target to shoot at and such quick, huge injections of capital can distort local economies.

Security: an ever-present issue

A moot point

Ten days here can’t come close to giving a real insight into what the future holds for Afghanistan.  While the question on the lips of many international observers is “what will happen in and after 2014” as the international military presence withdraws, listening to the voices of Afghans and international veterans of Afghanistan, I’m not sure this is the right question.  “I’ve not been looking at anything closer than 2030 for years,” said one.

“2014 is a moot point,” said another.  “There will still be 30 million Afghans trying to figure out a way to live. Most of them just want a home, a family, a job, to live in peace just like anybody else.”

I’m reminded of living and working in Cambodia before, during and after 22,000 UN peacekeepers came and went in the 1990s – in many ways it felt like a layer of plasticine had been laid onto and then peeled off Cambodian society, but without substantially changing the country that lay underneath.

Children educated today have different expectations

Shaping Afghanistan

What I learnt there may be even more true here – that it takes generational change for real transformation to take root. One colleague told me: “I’ve been married for 31 years, that’s a long time but not as long ago as the conflict and instability here in Afghanistan”.   It is the children being born and educated today with different expectations and aspirations than their parents and grandparents who may shape a different Afghanistan.

So, as I head home tonight after a week packed full of intense experiences, my head and heart are swirling with thoughts and feelings.  Sadness as I said farewell to friends in the World Vision offices and team house in Herat and Badghis and to the family of my Kabul colleague who welcomed me into their home on my last evening in Afghanistan.

A tingle of anticipation at seeing my own family again.  Tiredness and a touch of anxiety at the prospect of the transition back into UK life and work.

‘Khordofes’

Waving goodbye at child nutrition centre

What I will cherish most in my thoughts and prayers and what I will strive for in my work with World Vision is for those children I met here this week that will inherit and shape the future Afghanistan.

Hasim, only ten days old, who wouldn’t be here but for a qualified midwife and neonatal unit. Nasima brought back from severe malnutrition at 18 months by a community health worker.  Fardeen, who at 15 has rediscovered the childhood stolen from him with the love and protection of care centre workers.  The girls and boys dreaming of being doctors, teachers and engineers that filled the classroom in proud headmistress Faiqha’s remote village school.

Thank you to all who have followed my journey here this week and especially to all those here that made this possible.  In the words of the local Dari parting greeting here – ‘Khordofes’, may God go with you and protect you.  That of course is also my parting greeting to Afghanistan and its incredible people.

Justin Byworth, Chief Executive of World Vision UK, blogs from Afghanistan

It’s 23 years since I first sat surrounded by mothers and babies in a World Vision health and nutrition clinic.  That was in a tent made from goat’s wool in the desert of Mauritania, west Africa – I was logistician in my first overseas job with World Vision, making sure the medical supplies, vaccines etc got to the right place at the right time.

I must have been in similar settings 100 times or more in scores of countries since then and it never stops being the most wonderful human experience.

Karima, 24, with 11-month-old Shukria

Today I got my first taste of this in Afghanistan.  In the small back room of a traditional mud and straw house in the midst of 17 mothers and their crawling, crying and toddling babies while community health workers weighed and measured, taught and treated.  I just wish I could capture and carry with me the colour, noise, smiles, hopes, fears, love and laughter for days when life and work are tough.

Foundations for life

Helping mothers to bring children safely and healthily through their first few months and years remains the heartbeat of much of World Vision’s work worldwide.  A healthy start to life is the foundation on which children’s lives are built.

In a child’s first thousand days, if she is malnourished it will affect the rest of her life, massively limiting her mental and physical potential.  That’s for those that survive. Of course in Afghanistan, and far too many other places, there are many, many children who do not make it past their first, or second, or fifth birthdays.

Justin meets 11-month-old Ramin

All over the world, World Vision works as the glue between mothers and children in communities and the lowest levels of the local health service, itself often distant and poorly functioning. Bridging that gap can have a dramatic, transforming effect.

Taking care

Just two weeks ago, 18 year old Halima brought her 18-month-old daughter Nasima to this nutrition clinic.  Nasima was severely malnourished and was sick all the time – her mum didn’t know what to do. Halima proudly watched while Nasima is weighed and, having gained 1kg, is safely in the well-nourished zone.

Halima, 18, with 18-month-old daughter Nasima

“They’ve taught me how to take care of her so much better, she now eats rice and vegetables every day and I make sure things are hygienic,” Halima tells me. In this dry, dusty village mothers have traditionally not supplemented breastfeeding with any other food until they’re two years old. Of the 17 babies that have been coming here each day for the last two weeks, 14 were malnourished at the start.

Happier and healthier

This isn’t just a short term, emergency intervention though. The community health worker has worked alongside a local mother Rana who was already feeding her daughter a nutritious, well-balanced diet of lentils, peas, spinach, rice or bread and occasional meat.

Beautiful Atefa at 12 months already looks happier, healthier and better developed than many of the others. All these foods are available locally and, now that the mothers know how to prepare them from early weaning porridge at six months through to more solid foods by two, and have seen the difference it makes, there is no going back.

Community midwife Sabera

The community midwife, Sabera, is an amazing woman.  Clearly loved and respected by the mothers, she takes a basic kit of medicines out of her little safe box and confidently explains how she uses them and when she refers women to the nearest health centre, which is where she also receives training and meets other community health workers each month. Sabera’s family has been visibly impacted by the 30+ years of conflict that Afghanistan has faced. Her husband lost both his legs and one hand during the war.  Despite this, and being a mother of seven and grandmother to more, Sabera also heads up the local women’s Shura (council)!

Rural midwives

Today is also the international day of the midwife.  Of the 17 babies here this morning, only three had been delivered by a midwife as it was too far to the city.  Now they have a midwife at the local health centre only an hour’s walk away – one of the graduates from the provincial midwifery training supported by World Vision that we saw on Monday.

Bringing children’s care to the countryside

Khotera, World Vision’s own midwife who supports the newly trained and deployed community midwives, tells me: “I really love my job. There’s nothing like seeing the joy of a mother rejoicing at the birth of her baby.”  I completely agree, remembering those precious moments when my wife Mischka gave birth to each of our four beautiful children – Caitlin, Joshua, Maia and Luke.

As I leave with the smiles and waves of the women and their children behind me, I can’t help a feeling of sadness as I contrast this with the tragedy of the tiny boy who we watched dying so quietly in the neonatal unit on Monday. I wonder how his mother, who I never got to meet, is coping and pray for her again.

Justin Byworth, Chief Executive of World Vision UK, continues to blog from Afghanistan

It’s difficult as a western man to get any real understanding of what the world looks like through the eyes of an Afghan woman.  The veil and separation of all things male and female here – on top of all the differences of culture, language and religious tradition – pretty effectively mask what’s going on underneath the veil and the surface.

Today, on this Muslim day of rest as I reflect on what I’ve experienced here this week, I sense that women hold the key to the future for Afghanistan’s children.

Passion for a better future: Women in rural Afghanistan

I’m also starting to see that, despite many differences, the women of Afghanistan bear so much in common with women the world over.  Their passion to find a better future for their children.   Their determination to overcome the many obstacles that society puts in their way.  Their individual spirit and femininity shining through layers of uniformity.  The quiet knowing look or brief word that conveys more meaning and understanding than the long and lofty speech of men (me not least!).

Passion for the future

In a remote almost Tuscan looking village, Yadha has found a way to transform the futures of her children.  With World Vision’s help she’s become a beekeeper.  Producing the first honey this area’s ever known Yadha told me: “My children were illiterate but now I can send Nasruddin to school, that’s my first priority”.  Yadha pulled a roll of local bank notes from her pocket, and told me that with the £12 per kg she earns, “a prosperous future is waiting for my children”.

Yadha’s bee hive generates money to send her son to school

Yadha’s had to be bold to grasp this change. She says: “When World Vision first talked about bringing bees here everyone said, ‘why – they’ll just sting us and cause trouble’”.  As she proudly showed me her hives and gave me delicious honey to taste, Nasruddin, who’s 14 told me his favourite meal has become honey with naan and milk.  When I set out for Afghanistan I was not expecting a land of milk and honey!

Dramatic changes

In another village nearby, I met Faiqha headteacher of a local school supported by World Vision.  She’s a rare thing, as we’ve heard how difficult it is to find women teachers particularly in poor remote areas like this one that are often very conservative.  Faiqha’s been here seven years and her pride in seeing the number of girls in school continue to rise shines out from her face across the classroom.

She has also recruited other women to teach here – and the change from Afghanistan’s past is dramatic, to think that only ten years ago girls were not even allowed in school.  Mothers here have high hopes for their daughters: “We want them to become doctors, teachers, even engineers”.

Headteacher Faiqha has high hopes for her students

Their own aspirations are being fulfilled too as they benefit from the literacy and health education classes run by World Vision at the first community pre-school where we watched their five and six year-olds learning through play.  I just couldn’t stop smiling as we crouched at the edge of this crowded tent overflowing with the songs and smiles of young children and their mums.

Education and empowerment

I’ve also started to notice the little touches of individuality that are on display with and through the ‘hijab’.  A schoolgirl with blue flower patterns around the edge of her headscarf in a sea of uniformly white scarfs.   Henna covered fingertips against the backdrop of a black burqa.

Individuality thrives everywhere in this classroom!

Watching some of World Vision’s female staff showing each other their stylish new shoes as they slip them on to leave the office.  The five female volleyball teams that are taking part in a World Vision sponsored youth sporting tournament, complete in their sporting hijabs that we’ve provided.

As I sat yesterday with a group of local World Vision project managers, it was the two women who were the quietest. Yet is was Hasim who’d been voted ‘employee of the month’ by all staff and it was Ataiba whose one comment was most powerful of all – as she spoke of the risks that women face here and that real change can only come through their education and economic empowerment.

So, in my last few days here I will cherish each conversation I have with Afghan women and do my best to take the time to look, listen and learn before speaking or reaching male dominated conclusions.  I’ll also see more reflections in their eyes of the women and girls closest in my own life back home – my wife Mischka, two daughters Caitlin and Maia and my own Mum and sister.

Justin Byworth, Chief Executive of World Vision UK, blogs from rural western Afghanistan.

The ability of adults to harm children is truly shocking.   What never ceases to amaze me is the resilience of children to such hurt and trauma.  Today I sat listening to nine boys pouring out their hearts as they told their life stories – of violence, forced labour, trafficking, abuse, neglect and of grief at lost parents.

Many children end up carrying out hard labour in the countryside

Then within minutes we were playing volleyball together. They were laughing (mostly at me!) and relieving me of my phone to play games on. Resilience and recovery from trauma is only made possible by a secure, loving environment.  That’s exactly where we were today – at a child care centre that World Vision helps support, where nearly 150 boys and girls live in safety, able to grow up healthy, educated and surrounded by friends who have become their family.

Grim realities

I’ll share the story of just one of these boys and, to protect his identity, I’ve changed his name.

Fardeen was taken towards Iran by traffickers

Fardeen’s father died when he was one.  His mother worked hard to care for him but when he was seven an ‘uncle’ took him from her, to work long days as a shepherd through harsh winters and hot summers, stopping him from going to school.  Then ‘some men’ – traffickers – persuaded him to escape with them to Iran, ‘the land of opportunities’.

His uncle came after them and brought Fardeen back to the town here.  Instead of taking Fardeen home he sold him to work for a lorry driver.  The lorry driver beat Fardeen often and ‘exploited’ him. ‘Exploited’ is the closest they’ll come to talking about the grim unspoken realities of what Fardeen suffered.

Treated as a commodity

Forced to work unpaid in a restaurant at the age of seven

After just two months Fardeen ran away to work with a local mason before discovering the safety of the centre here just a year ago. What I’ll remember best is not Fardeen’s story, but his struggle not to cry when he spoke of his mother and the pain in his face when he spoke of the lorry driver.

Each child and their story are unique. The pattern though, as we heard one story after another, was painfully familiar.  Children, when at their most vulnerable -  orphaned, homeless – being treated as a commodity to profit from.  One boy told how the owner of the restaurant he worked in aged just seven fed him only the scraps of leftover food.

Another told of his sister being sold in marriage when she was just a young child.  For others it was simply the tale of hard labour, regular beatings and abandonment that led them to flee to this safe haven.

Sharing stories

Game of volleyball at child care centre

I count myself honoured to have shared a little in these boys’ lives.  Sitting on the floor of their dormitory, taking the time to hear about their lives in the company of trusted care worker and local World Vision staff as they gradually opened up to share what became an unstoppable flow of stories.

Running around the dusty volleyball court afterwards with the sun beating down on us, I didn’t feel so different from when I’m playing with my 10 year old son Luke in the garden at home.  I’m privileged too, to work for World Vision and be able to do something to help protect children like these from harm.

As I head to bed now, my mind turns back to the shepherd boys whose voices I heard echoing across the hillside yesterday.  I pray that tonight they can sleep unafraid of a beating, and that tomorrow World Vision and all those we work with can prevent these stories from being repeated, whether in Afghanistan, Zimbabwe or anywhere in between.

As the world focuses on Afghanistan today: President Obama’s historic visit and discussions about the future of the country, our Chief Executive visits the region and reflects on World Vision’s work assisting communities there.

Justin Byworth, Chief Executive of World Vision UK, blogs from Afghanistan.

Afghanistan.  For the rest of the world it is images of conflict and insecurity that come to mind at the mere mention of this country.  After only three days here it’s crystal clear that the real Afghanistan is something altogether different.  A place of incredible history, of spectacular natural beauty and of extraordinary people rich with potential.  From the majesty of mosques and citadels that have been trod by Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great.  To fields of flowers rolling down gentle green hills, above valleys where peaches and pistachios flourish.  To a democratically elected local leader wrestling with the challenges of getting children into school, of bringing greater equality for women, and protecting young men from the perils of trafficking.  These are the images that today brought to us as we travelled from the bustle of the city to the calm of the countryside.

Villages of mud brick hewn out of the side of the hills

Struggling with the basics

I’m writing this in the dark, quiet of the World Vision office come guest house in this small, dusty provincial town where the electricity generator’s just gone off for the night.  It’s a more conservative area than the city, with few women visible outdoors and those that are completely veiled.  Far more turbans and beards too – closer to what one colleague describes as ‘the beard growing capital of the world’!   The faces are even more diverse than we’ve seen elsewhere – Pashtuns, Tajiks, Turkmens, Uzbeks and the nomadic Kuchis.  As we walked through the winding, bumpy streets we passed carpet saddled horses, donkeys and motorbikes, great piles of wool, and lines of plastic bottles filled with fuel.  Driving up into the hills above the town we can see them clothed in meadows of grass and poppies (not the opium producing variety) here for just 3 or 4 months of the year between the snows of winter and the harsh heat of summer.

Habib, with the drought resistant pistachio trees that will bring about change for his family

The basics of life are not easy here though.  Villages of mud brick hewn out of the side of the hills, donkeys ploughing the briefly fertile land on the steepest of slopes, children walking 2 hours or more to carry water from the river to their homes.  Drought for much of the last three years, interspersed with flash floods down dry river beds.  The local Shura (council) leader tells me that and “there’s not enough work or ways to make a living here, we are losing our sons – they are leaving us”.

The forgotten place

World Vision have been working here for years and a local colleague tells me “World Vision is leading the green revolution in this area – fruit trees, soya beans, saffron, pistachios.  Bees too, and a women’s carpet co-operative.”  He says that “it’s been a forgotten place, it’s taken time for communities to know us and trust us, but now we are friends and so much is happening”.  We met Habib who proudly showed us his field of young pistachio trees “this will bring a huge change for my family, they are drought resistant and if we care for them for 4 or 5 years there will be nuts for 200 years”.

Mohamed, the local Shura leader, who desires change for women and children in Afghanistan

The desire for change

The local Shura leader invited me in for my first cup of tea in an Afghan home. I listened gripped as Mohamed told us the story of his family, community and the trials and tribulations of leadership.  With 6 of his 7 children daughters, his desire for change for women is very clear “I want them to be doctors, teachers”.  He describes vividly the trap that many young men of 16 or 17 fall into, in the hands of traffickers they are tempted away to find work in Iran and all too often fall into drug addiction.  As Mohamed thanks World Vision for our support, he invites me to stay at his home for the night.  I know what our security officer (and my family!) might say about that, staying in this mountain village an hour from the provincial town itself firmly in the ‘red’ security zone.   Mohamed reading my thoughts tells me “you would be safe here, I have 4,000 people following me, no one can touch you!”

Justin Byworth, Chief Executive of World Vision UK, blogs from Afghanistan.

Life and death.  Today we saw both in all their wonder and horror the numbing tragedy of a tiny newborn baby’s life slipping quietly away, the overflowing joy of children, playing and laughing in the safety and love of our street children’s centre.  Surrounding both, we saw the care and determination of World Vision’s Afghan staff and partners to bring life to children from their first cry through every day of their precious childhoods.

Haunting scenes

We watched a young nurse and doctor battle in vain to save the life of this tiny, premature baby in the neonatal unit

The scene that we witnessed unfolding inside the little neonatal unit at the provincial hospital this morning runs in freeze frame through my head.  We step inside.  Two empty incubators across the room.  On the right a bright pink miniature bundle in a crib screaming lamb-like tiny cries.

The attention of Dr Sabbor and the nurse is focused elsewhere.  On the dark haunting eyes and pale grey body of a premature baby rushed here just minutes ago straight from delivery.  The nurse presses the small ventilator again and again passing air down the tube into his poorly formed lungs.

19-year-old Suria with her new baby boy - yet to be named

His heart is still beating but it’s clear all is not well, and as the minutes pass I hear her tell the doctor “no more vital signs”. Slowly, gently she stops and after a moment of stillness she pulls the blanket over him.  It feels wrong that a life can pass so quickly and quietly.  It feels wrong to be here, when his mother lies nearby unaware, recovering from labour.

I feel helpless to say or do anything, but pray for them both, recalling the rage and raw grief of a Cambodian mother holding her dying.

on in her arms twenty years ago.  Noory, the midwife who delivered the little boy arrives and is visibly shaken – she’s only 21 herself and still completing her training.  After 29 deliveries this is the first baby she’s lost and she departs to see and tell his mother.

Thriving amid fragility

Dr Saboor turns his attention back to the living, to the still so vulnerable baby across the room.  A young woman arrives. It’s Rubia the young mother of little Hasim and we hear their story and see a new mother’s joy and exhaustion across her face.

The statistics and language of child and maternal mortality in Afghanistan came to life in a whole new way in that unforgettable 30 minutes.  Nearly one in five children here die before their fifth birthday.  Every 30 minutes a mother dies in childbirth.  There are 30 million people in Afghanistan and it’s impossible to imagine what we witnessed this morning writ large across the country.

But there is hope.  Hope in Hasim’s lung-bursting cries of life.  Hope in the care that’s enabled Hasim and so many others to thrive from the most fragile of starts in life.  Hope in the young midwives that we met this morning that World Vision is helping to train – 200 of them already in hospitals across western Afghanistan and 30 community level midwives who will soon extend this to many unreached health centres.

A life-saving difference

Shafiqa, 18, and Noorya, 21, learning midwife skills at the maternity hospital

Young women like Shafiqa, just 18 and Noorya, 21, who talked with pride and excitement about their work.  They reminded me of the community midwives of 1950s London’s east end brought to life so vividly in BBC TV’s recent ‘Call the Midwife’.  Midwives are just one way in which World Vision and others are making a life-saving difference for the women and children of Afghanistan – in the last 10 years maternal death in childbirth has almost halved and infant death rates are falling steadily.

Full of confidence

We ended the day with children bursting with life and hope at World Vision’s street children centre here.  So full of confidence, so proud of graduating from their informal class here and getting places in formal local schools that were far beyond them just a year ago when they worked each day in hard and hazardous conditions in the city streets.  Best of all was playing with them – table football with the boys, while the girls built homes for toy animals.

They love the staff here, especially the counsellor Mariam who has helped so many of them recover from damaging childhood experiences.   My wife Mischka would have loved it here, although it’s a far cry from her work counselling university students in England.

Street children centre run by World Vision

Cherishing children and childhoods

As we ended, several boys and girls grabbed their home made kites and waved them high above their heads – their faces will be in my mind as I turn the pages of ‘The Kite Runner’ before I sleep tonight.  My prayers will linger not only on them but on the baby boy and his mother, father, brother and sisters who are mourning his death tonight.

For any of you reading this pray for the children of Afghanistan, and cherish your own children and childhoods so much safer from the hardship and heartache that many here face.

Justin Byworth, Chief Executive of World Vision UK, is in Afghanistan to see the organisation’s work on the ground. 

World Vision team house, provincial Afghanistan

My first day in Afghanistan -  a long journey full of contrasts.  From the loud buzz of military helicopters to the tranquil sounds of birdsong on the breeze and call to prayer from the local mosque.  From the consumer glitz of Dubai airport to the stark barren mountains of Afghanistan.  From the sparkling eyes and diverse faces of the Afghan people to the guns, fatigues, armoured cars and trappings of a large international and local military presence.  It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m resting finally in the World Vision team house in this provincial town 24 hours since leaving Heathrow.  Sunday is normally a regular day of work here, but fortunately for my colleague Chris and I, it’s a public holiday – as Afghanistan celebrates the anniversary of the fall of communism here.   Locals say they have a long list of similar anniversaries to commemorate, including escaping dominance of the British empire nearly 100 years ago to the departure of the Soviets in 1979.

Dramatic scenery entering Kabul

Dramatic beauty

My first sight of Afghanistan was the dramatic beauty of descending over snow capped peaks into the valley of Kabul.  We were met by our driver, a local World Vision staff member who guided us through the various security checkpoints to connect with our local flight.  The air is cool, clear and crisp and you can sense the altitude under the bright glare of the sun.  A small van, fully upholstered with Afghan carpets on top of the seats, takes us to the gates where we pass through razor wire and earthwork barricades to the tiny terminal to await our flight.  The air’s filled with the hum of plane propellers and helicopters, coming and going.

The security instructions on my plane ticket are rather different from normal, “Weapons are allowed but must be unloaded.  Small arms may be hand-carried on board, provided they have been cleared of any and all ammunition. No pyrotechnics, explosive devices, or grenades.”  Then there’s the familiar “No liquids more than 100mls in your carry-on luggage” which seems somewhat ironic given the weapons!

Anyway, I’m here safe and well, security, culture and programme briefings all done and dusted and looking forward to the week ahead, learning about the people of this fascinating country and seeing World Vision’s work to save and protect children in one of the world’s hardest places.