AQEEB CAN READ

“I opened my eyes in an ultra-poor family who are unable to afford my expenses of treatment, medicine and education. Whenever I asked them to send me to school they answered that we can’t afford to send you to school and you also have a weak eye sight” says Aqeel Ashraf, a student of Drop-In-Center Kasur, Pakistan.

 Aqeel lives with his five siblings and parents in a small, one room house, in miserable conditions in Karma Abad colony of district Kasur. He could not attend school because of poverty and his week eye-sight.

While visiting with working children, the project team found Aqeel at home where he was fetching lunch for his Dad. Aqeel works in a small shoe making factory with his father. The Project team spoke to his mother about the need of good health and education for Aqeel. She replied that Aqeel can’t read and write properly, and "also he is not normal as other children are as he cannot see in sunshine". She said that her husband will decide about Aqeel’s education and health.

Aqeel shuts his eyes in sun light but in darkness/shadow he can see well. Aqeel has three brothers and two sisters. All his siblings are doing labour work. His elder brother Adeel and younger brother Shakeel are also employed in the shoe factory; while his mother and two sisters do embroidery work.

After a number of visits with the parents, Aqeel visited the DIC in November 2011 and registered in Level 1. His father initially showed reluctance to send him to the DIC. When Aqeel came to DIC, he was not able to read and write. The project team met Aqeel’s father who shared that Aqeel’s eye sight is weak and the doctor had advised on glasses. The team suggested another eye sight check-up. His father, Muhammad Ashraf, shoe maker by profession, initially had reservations, but sent his son.

Aqeel was promoted to Level 2, he can now read and write, and acknowledges the Project teams efforts that brought a positive change in his life. The DIC teachers have taught him according to his ability and the psychologist gave psychosocial support to improve his personality. His father also acknowledges that Aqeel can read and write and wants him to continue his studies. He promised to have another eye sight check-up of Aqeel. His father also wishes to go to Karachi for proper treatment of his son but needs financial assistance.

“I did not realize the importance of education which is the fundamental right of every child” he says.

Aqeel’s parents are now motivated and want him to continue his education and enjoy good health. Aqeel has been identified for mainstreaming into the government school at the end of March, 2012. The Project team has held meetings and given awareness to the Principal and teachers of Government School’s about the importance of education for all children (boys and girls) so that they have the opportunity of a bright future.

In the DIC children learn about their rights and responsibilities and are taught personal hygiene and other health, environment issues. Children who have attended the DIC know their rights and speak on them and their responsibilities with their families and friends.

Aqeel is happy that he got an opportunity to study like his friends and now he is going to join a Government school for formal education. His father has said that very soon he will go to hospital for his proper checkup of eye sight.

(Story: Saif Ullah Khalid, GTO, Kasur, Pakistan)

GIVE HOPE TO CHILD SOLDIERS

A Congolese Soldier (not Emmanuel)

My name is Emmanuel Jal - Musician, Activist, and former Child Soldier from South Sudan. A WAR CHILD.

I was born into the war in Sudan. At the age of five, my aunt was raped in front of me, and a man was killed in front of my mother and I. By the time I was eight, I was put into battle carrying an AK-47 rifle.

As a child I used to wonder: how could they get these weapons so easily? It’s the poorly regulated arms trade that allows weapons to be shipped between countries with little thought about whose hands the weapons end up in.

I am working with Amnesty International for strong regulations on the weapons trade that can help stop the horrors I experienced happening again.

After years of my country suffering, the world's governments are finally drafting an Arms Trade Treaty to stop dictators and thugs from buying weapons. They’re meeting at the United Nations in New York to negotiate the treaty. This is our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make sure we get a treaty that protects lives, and Amnesty will be there to deliver your signature with millions more from around the world. Will you be part of it? Click here to join me in calling for a strong Arms Trade Treaty.

There’s no easy answer to stopping the horrors that war lords have been committing for centuries. But if we can keep weapons the away from them, we have a better chance of protecting millions of lives and giving a new chance to tens of thousands of child soldiers.

When I was a child soldier, I was seen as expendable. At one point, I almost lost my mind. I thought "Do we deserve this? Where are my family members? Why are we suffering like this?" There was no school. How can you go to school when you’re running from one place to another, when there’s always war, fear and people losing their lives?

Even today, the war continues. In the last two weeks, communities in my home country, South Sudan, are fleeing bombs dropped on their homes - yet rich governments continue to ship weapons there. Please join in this campaign and help make sure our voices are not ignored.

I am now 32 years old, living in London and working as a hip-hop musician. Music is a therapy for me that gives me back the childhood that was stolen from me.

For the other children who are going through what I had to experience, I hope you can join me to be part of this.

Emmanuel Jal
for Amnesty International

AID: A PROMISE BROKEN

Last night's 2012/13 budget represents a core promise broken by the Gillard Government. It will affect the lives of millions of men, women and children who depend on Australian aid.

The Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), the peak body for aid charities, is extremely disappointed that the Government has abandoned its commitment to lift foreign aid to 50 cents in every $100 of Australia’s national income by 2015.

“Pushing this commitment back to 2016-17 is not good enough,” said Marc Purcell, ACFID Executive Director.

“Australia alone cannot fling aside the international goal to halve poverty by 2015, agreed by over 180 nations.”

“John Howard made this commitment in our name 12 years ago and tonight Julia Gillard had promised to deliver,” he said.

“Mr Howard committed Australia to help halve global poverty in the year 2000. Years of bipartisan effort and bipartisan promises have been put into this commitment. An independent review has been held and a roadmap released to achieve it by 2015.”

“Just last year, the Prime Minister restated her commitment to doubling Australia’s aid by 2015 in the Government’s own leaflet for developing countries. The catch-cry of the leaflet was: Australia: We Do What We Say.”

“But tonight, the Government has choked at the crucial moment. Instead of doing it’s part as promised in this global effort they have put their commitment off until 2016-17 to make a budget saving.”

“This puts the Government’s plan to reach 0.5 per cent of national income towards aid not only beyond the next election, but the one after that.”

“Tonight we could have saved an extra 800,000 lives,” said Mr Purcell. “We are calling on the Coalition to now keep their promise to save those lives by 2015.”

“Mr Swan said today that this Budget would look after the most vulnerable and uphold the ‘fair go’.”

“But what about a fair go for the 15 mothers who will die or suffer permanent disability today alone during childbirth in PNG?”

“The Treasurer said yesterday that Australia ‘walks tall in the global economy’ and ‘we in Australia have done so much better than many other countries around the world,” said Mr Purcell. “Yet, we rank below average out of the 23 wealthy nations who give aid. That isn’t walking tall.”

“Tonight’s budget is so disappointing not only because the Government has broken a promise, but because this decision will deeply affect the lives of the poorest people in our region and beyond,” Mr Purcell concluded.

Ethical Bricks

Over the past years the products available to the person wanting to support ethical traders has steadily increased. Most people these days have heard of Fair trade, but there are many other traders, (click on the link for a list of some of these).

Whilst in Pakistan last year I was personally struck with reasons why I need to support the companies that seek to provide a work environment that is safe and fair. I was going to buy myself a new leather jacket - there are plenty of good quality, hand stitched jackets with that new leather smell - but then I visited the tanneries of Kasur. I saw kids, (and adults) working in conditions that are not just unfair, but patently unsafe. Teenagers with permanent skin diseases from the chemical treatments. Children wading through stinking offal as they cleaned and prepared the skins.

Now, I won't pretend that my decision not to buy leather is going to change this industry, but having seen, I had to do something.

This week, with the Pakistan team, I began the process to do something about another 'abusive' industry. The brick industry in Pakistan is a large user of child and bonded labour, a source of organ selling and unfair work practices. There is not much ethical or fair for the people that make bricks in the kilns in Kasur (and many other locations). But we are going to have a go at working with a kiln owner or two to develop a fair and safe kiln - we are going to try and change the way the brick makers (in particular children) are treated and paid. At the same time we are going to try and convince some of the 'big buyers' to only buy from our 'model, fair trade, kilns'.

Is it going to make a difference? Will it stop child and bonded labour? Well, not overnight it won't - but unless people start buying ethically traded products it's never going to change. Unless people stop buying products they know to be produced by slave labour it won't change! Unless I decide that I would prefer no leather jacket, to one that started life under the bare feet of a little kid working for $0.25c a day - it won't change.

So, we're going to try and make some ethical bricks. We're going to try and build some fair trade walls. And in the process we'll try and stop some kids having to work 15 hour days; instead they can learn to read and write. We might even be able to stop a father from selling his family to the kiln owner for generations to come, or just selling a kidney, to pay for his daughter's wedding.

Simplistic - Yes! But will you imagine the alternative? Would you accept the alternative for yourself, your family, your kids?

Out of Afghanistan

I try to reflect on what on earth I am doing, and why: one of the comments I often make on reviews of programming is: what were the lessons learned and how will they impact future work? Perhaps, for a Christian, there is no better time to do this kind of reflection than this week, and no better position in which to breathe deeply than in the shadow of the cross, and the hope of the empty tomb.

So, after three weeks in Afghanistan what reflections do I have? (There are many but just a couple)

• People are resilient and hopeful: I met some people who have 'had it rough' for 20 years, living in a temporary camp in the desert, on the outside of town. They are stigmatised and held in suspicion because of their cultural heritage, not for any factual reason. They are held in a state of flux because they don't fit within the political agenda, they are not a priority. Yet, despite all this, they have formed a tight, disciplined community that is educating its children (including girls), employing its youth and feeding its people.
• People can be selfish and cruel: I'd like to not acknowledge it, but some people are driven by greed, some by religious fervor. But religious fanaticism is not limited to Muslims - despite the attempt by some to build this case - I know some equally fanatical Christians and Buddhists. Religion doesn't need to be something that divides us.
• Just because it's different, doesn't make it wrong: I often hear people saying that another's cultural practice is wrong, when what they really mean is it's different. I am not suggesting that culture is always right, but we do need to genuinely try and understand before we write off the beliefs and practices of others - sometimes, just maybe, there is something to learn from the other.
• It is possible to be a 'double agent': Officially I was representing a well respected International Non-Government Organisation (INGO), but it is impossible to divorce who I am from all that I do. So it was that I found myself explaining The Salvos in discussions with AusAID and other INGOs; discussing the vision and mission of The Salvation Army, and discussing their Aid and Development footprint and agenda.

Another trip is over, but my role of supporting the program to transform the lives of marginalised, ignored or forgotten people is refocused. Why do it? Because it matters... because it's my Easter.

There are people hurting in the world out there,

There are children crying and no-one to care...

If we close our eyes perhaps they'll go away?

Kabul Blue

After passing by the de-mining facility at the base of the hill, a dusty, table top, plateau spreads out before you, and above the City. We're in Teppe Maranjan which is thought to be the oldest continually inhabited part Kabul, and the site of the mausoleum of King Nadir Shah, and his family before and after his assassination in 1933.

It's a significant site for the people of Kabul: fought over by the Taliban and Mujaheddin during the 1990s, today it is the gathering place for families on a Friday afternoon. Here you can buy, and fly a brightly coloured kite, or have a pony ride on any one of a dozen decorated ponies, or buy chai from dozens of young boys running from one customer to another with a thermous full of green tea. The site of a large kite festival during Nauruz (New Year, which was last week) - today there are only a dozen or so, but it is still early they tell me, later the place will be packed as people, ponies and kites fight for space.

Down below, and in the distance, the green of the (Olympic) Stadium has a game of cricket in action. An ancient (destroyed) fortress, now home to international forces dominates the landscape, as does a white "unmanned airship" anchored to the ground as it's sister flies the skies above Kabul, watching.

As I drive through the city, signs of past war are evident; high, razor wired walls patrolled by soldiers in full gear are numerous; police road blocks and checks are constant - but the people are friendly, open and welcoming. It's quiet in Kabul this morning, it's Friday, but soon the gatherings will start as families and friends meet together in the parks and mosques.

On Chicken Street shop keepers are selling Afghan carpets, for only $10,000 and all kinds of other souvenirs. One of my overwhelming impressions is that there is a lot of blue! Lapis Lazuli is mined in Afghanistan and it is everywhere. The famous Herat Glass is coloured by it, lumps of it, polished and raw decorate shop windows, all kinds jewelry and containers are made from it, and of course the mosques are tiled in it. (Kabul too has a blue mosque.)

It's a city of blue, of dust, of mountains and 5 million people - people who in the main are just hoping and praying for peace and a future. (Simplistic I know!) Afghanistan is a beautiful country.

Kabul - I'm Here

I created a new record today - my domestic, Herat to Kabul flight was only an hour late, which makes it "on time".

Like many countries getting into, and out of, the airport is quite an adventure. It starts by travelling the most dangerous road in Herat, in my case and mostly, uneventfully but then the fun starts. Thanks to an Afghan team mate I sat in the car, on the side of the road, while he checked me in - only one problem - I din't know he was doing it and he didn't check my luggage on. But I knew no different, just assumed I did it when I eventually got in the terminal.

So, checked in we headed for the secure entry, we were scanned, searched and yelled at by security who then noticed a VIP sticker on the dash board. So in we went, to an empty airport complex - driving innocently before a soldier ran from out the bushes and flagged us down. But we were permitted to go on another 50 meters before I was asked to get out and drag my luggage into the building, where I was shown to a seat. One at a time we were shown to the xray machine and our luggage was scanned. No one else seemed to have luggage but even at the machine I was not told I should have checked luggage.

Pointed to a seat, still no one said what is this over-sized luggage. By the time we walked out onto the tarmac to get on the plane people were so concerned about the Minister of the Interior being on our flight that it was too late. So I lugged my luggage onboard, and they stowed it in a toilet and closed it. The flight was on time because of the VIP, and at the other end I didn't have to wait for the carousel.

Life is never dull! 

Last Impressions (Herat)

Tonight is my last in Herat, tomorrow afternoon I head to Kabul for a few days where I will catch up with some funding partners and do some schmoozing and some public relations (or is that the same thing?) before heading back home.

It has been quite a journey. I have had the privilege of working alongside some amazing people. People whose every day lives contain stress and uncertainty - yet they seem not to allow their lives to be defined by these negatives, but rather by resilience, by hope and by determination.

I met an influential Mullah that supports our Street Children and HIV/AIDS programs: a tall, distinguished man with a startling white turban and beard, who offered to be of assistance in any way he can. Behaviour change, education and community transformation will not happen here without the support of the Mullah - and our team have worked hard to gain their trust and support.

I met the Deputy Governor of Herat - a man with an open, friendly demeanor who gave us his time to help celebrate the children who were graduating from the Street Children project. But more importantly than giving us his time, he gave time to the children. He went to all 7 classes and spent time talking with these kids who are the poorest of the poor, he made them laugh, and listened to their stories.

I sat with the leader of a refugee camp. An articulate passionate man who was fired up to get whatever he could, from whoever he could for the 30,000 people under his care. I listened to a 15 year old girl who has been trained in STIs, HIV/AIDS and is now a peer educator in the refugee camp. She doesn't have enough time to meet with all the women and girls that want to learn.

I talked with one doctor who gives her time free to consult with women and girls who have been sexually abused, and I walked with a second doctor who works with drug using men and sees his work as his prayer.

These (and more) are amazing people who give their time and talents in service of others. It has been a privilege to meet them and I honour them tonight.

The Blue Mosque

At 121 meters in length, and with the dominant lapis lazuli (blue) tiled walls and minarets, the Blue Mosque in Herat is quite a spectacular landmark.

The grounds on which the Mosque stands are quite extensive and are composed of a number of individual grassed and low walled areas. Central to this area is a minaret that stands atop a mass tomb, a memorial to the casualties of one of the many wars that Herat has experienced.

But what stood out to me was not the cannon that stood beside the memorial, or the massive edifice of the mosque in the foreground, but the many people that were gathered on the grassed areas. Some were asleep, a few groups sat in circles studying, families were having a picnic, children ran and played, men sat quietly, their mouths silently reciting the 99 attributes of God with the assistance of their prayer beads (called subha - meaning "to exhalt"). This was a community area, a safe place, and a place where anyone was welcome.

People come and go all day, the doors to the mosque remain open until the early hours of the morning. Students sit in the numerous alcoves within the quietness of the mosque courtyard, their text books spread before them. Father's were explaining the architecture, and reading the words of the Qur'an that are written in tiles on all the surfaces of the buildings.

What impressed me was that in the middle of this chaotic, busy, noisy town is a refreshing oasis - a place of prayer, a place of learning and sharing, a place of resting, acceptance and safety, a place for anyone, at any time.

We all need these kind of places and these moments of grace: for a few minutes today I was glad to be able to escape the chaos of Afghanistan and sit in silence and solitude, bathed in a strange blue light reflecting off the tiled walls - and imagine God.

Masha'Allah: God Has Willed It

Today we saw the difference 9 months, a little hope and a lot of love and acceptance can make. When the Street Kids project started last year the staff went onto the streets and spoke with parents of children between 7 and 10 years of age who were working to help make ends meet in the household.

They invited 100 of these children to be part of a new pilot program that, in partnership with the Afghan Government's Ministry of Education, aims to give working children a chance to have the same advantage that any other child calls a right.

After classes in literacy and numeracy, training in life skills and health checks they sat a Year 3 school admission test: 93 of them passed! This afternoon we had the privilege, with the Deputy Governor of Herat and a number of other important people of celebrating their success.

Nine months ago a little boy crept into the building with his Dad, he was shy, he was dirty and he was frightened. He was coming for his first interview with a counselor and after a while of ice breaking, he was asked what he hoped to be when he grew up. He laughed - what a ridiculous question to ask a street kid - he knew that like his Dad this was his life, this was all there was.

The counselor persisted and asked him to dream; eventually he bowed his head into his chest, stared tentatively at his feet and mumbled, "I want to be a poet". He waited to be laughed at, but the counselor raised his head, looked into his eyes, and said "Will you let us help you be a poet".

Today the same little boy stood at the front, clean and healthy, dressed in a nice uniform, his head held high, his eyes looking at unseen words, his actions rehearsed but strong, and, with impressive lungs sung a Dari poem in front of a couple of dozen 'important people'. The counselor that met him that first day looked away with tears in her eyes. The boy finished, smiled at his audience - and took a deep breath. Masha'Alla.

Our vision for every child, life in all its fullness; 

Our prayer for every heart, the will to make it so. 

Masha'Allah is an Arabic phrase that expresses appreciation, joy, praise or thankfulness for an event or person; it's an acknowledgement that all good things come from God.

Maslakh Refugee Camp

Maslakh Housing, NOT Ruins

On the road to Iran, just a few kilometres outside of Herat, just beyond the vibrant blue house of "the 4 brothers" (known smugglers), lies a suite of derelict, pastel coloured buildings. They stand out for a couple of reasons: they are a striking contrast to the vast nothingness of the desert that lies beyond, and they are known as Maslakh, the slaughterhouse. 

Before the Taliban era, this was the site of perhaps the busiest abattoir in Afghanistan – but in the last year of the Taliban, about 11 years ago it became famous for something else. Around it grew the largest refugee camp in the world with reportedly 350,000 people living in horrible conditions. Refugees from drought, ethnic violence and civil war the people came from all over the west and north to the relative safety of Herat.

Today there are only 30,000 people in the camp. As you look to the right of the road (travelling towards Iran) you see in the distance a magnificent, rugged, mountain range reaching into the clouds and from the base of these mountains to the road the desert is littered with the remains of adobe constructions that housed and protected a multitude of frightened people.

I couldn’t help staring in awe at the mountain ranges and wondering about the words of Psalm 121; “I look to the [mountains] where does my help come from?” and contrasting those words, which roll so easily off the tongue, with the life reality of the refugees that slept beneath them.

The children have nowhere to play in this desert, the teenagers and young adults have no jobs to hope for. The school is an old clinic with 7 rooms, (each about 15m2). There is an enrolment of 3,000 lucky children, (there’s no room for the other 3,000) and an average class size of 90; the boys in the morning and the girls in the afternoon.

Many of the children from 8 years old up work on the streets in the city, or make adobe bricks, to help their families survive. Most of the men and teenage boys go into the city looking for day work. But the parents would give up the extra income for school.

In the near future we hope to do something to help the children. Simplistically: our goal is to implement a project that will bring community based schooling to the kids that are currently missing out. We plan to train local school graduates, boys and girls, and engage existing teachers in the community and equip them to run “home” based schools. Parallel to this we are going to look to deliver literacy classes for adults.

When you look at the extent of the camp, and consider the number of people, this sounds like a drop in the ocean – but, in a desert, at least it’s water!

We Live in a VUCA World

I had the chance to do some research today and by accident came across a new thought; to me anyway. It is the idea that we live in a VUCA world. For those that don’t know, VUCA is term that comes from military vocabulary, appearing in the 1990s it has since been introduced into the realm of strategic leadership and adopted by corporations worldwide.

A VUCA world is one defined by:

• Volatility: change is guaranteed, our world is fast paced, dynamic, catalytic
• Uncertainty: a lack of predictability, the potential for surprise, and a sense of awareness
• Complexity: describes the innumerable ideas, confounding issues, chaos and confusion
• Ambiguity: reflects the haziness of truth or reality, the mixed meanings, the potential for misreading

These elements present a worldview from which organisations build their management, vision, purpose and strategy. But you would have to agree that whilst it may be realistic it is also pretty discouraging. If that is the world leaders see and respond to, it is no wonder that leadership is often defensive, controlling, manipulative and reactionary.

Kevin Roberts, (CEO of Saachi & Saachi) envisions a different superVUCA world. He redefines the elements and suggests what I think is a much more positive, exciting and empowering worldview, and one that challenges leaders to be creative. (His labels, my definitions.)

• Vibrant: an exciting mosaic of energetic, animated, multi-cultural and multi-sensory overload
• Unreal: ‘real’ is contextually defined, it is informed (only in part) by instant information and imagination, it is incredible and weird
• Crazy: unstructured, flexi-bounded, messy, chaotic, fun, foolish and wild
• Astounding: surprising, joyful, amazing and wonderful

Our job as leaders is to expand and celebrate the impossible with truth, joy and inclusion. Robert’s suggests that to be a superVUCA leader requires that we forget about the NEW and we embrace the NOW. “Welcome to the Age of NOW” he says, “the time of power to the people, of 6.8 billion “screenagers” who are always-on, instantly-demanding, immediately-sharing, if we feel loved!”

The superVUCA world demands leaders understand that the age of the Modern, the NEW, is gone. NOW is the era that must inform our leadership. (The following table (adapted from Roberts) contrasts the characteristics that define the different leaders.) We need NOW leaders – please. 

 

ERA OF NEW	AGE OF NOW
Attention	Participation
Inform	Inspire
Interruption	Interaction
Return on Investment	Return on Involvement
Local	Global
Counting Numbers	Creating Movements

“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour – his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear – 

is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause.” 

(Vince Lombardi: ESPN Coach of the Century)