14th Feb 2007
a calling?
I have had this long-standing desire to do work in another country to help their education system for women. Well, a particular country — Afghanistan. This started when Teachers College worked on helping re-build higher education in Kabul and Kandahar after the U.S. invasion in 2001 and the Taliban was deposed and it continues to today. I just have this strong sense that I need to give back, in a larger sense than here in America and New Jersey specifically, and I have been fascinated by Afghanistan. Maybe because parts of it look like Colorado, or maybe because of the particular plight of women there — I don’t know. I feel a pull to find a way to get there, just for a few months, and do what I can as well as see what life is like for women in a very different situation than here. The more involved I get in adult literacy and education, the more I want to use what I am learning in places that desperately need it. I even went so far as to check the United Nations site, but they aren’t sending women volunteers there right now because of safety issues (and I can just hear my mother saying that I should pay close attention to that fact).. then yesterday, when checking out a video for Basic Skills on Afghanistan Unveiled (it’s the first documentary produced by women after the fall of the Taliban) I met Aleana.
She is an international student from Afghanistan here to study political science and she works with the gender unit of the UN back home to help women. I gave her my card and asked her to email me if she saw any opportunities where I might be able to help. So we shall see.
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