There's rarely any positive news about Afghanistan. What little we do hear paints a picture of a nation crippled by violence, where a resurgent Taliban is behind a booming opium trade and where there are frequent, often fatal attacks on seemingly unwanted NATO forces.
But talking to locals and aid workers on the ground tells another story. Afghanistan, they say, is not a quagmire where Western forces are fighting a losing battle for hearts and minds. Instead, they tell a story of hope–of a nation where citizens yearn to shed the shackles of 30 years of war and embrace reconstruction efforts.
And the reconstruction and development efforts in Afghanistan by the international community have been massive. The Kabul-based Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, has a database of over 45,000 reconstruction and development projects across Afghanistan, operating a wide range of programs. There's vocational training for widows, polio immunization, tree planting and water management, archaeological conservation and poultry production, small wells and big roads, transitional justice efforts, refugee assistance, and an Amputee Bicyclists messenger service. Among dozens of non-government organizations working to help Afghanistan's people rebuilt their country is Afghans4Tomorrow (A4T), which offers humanitarian aid, healthcare, education, and assistance with agricultural development in cooperation with local leaders.
Many A4T volunteers are well-educated Americans of Afghan descent who could live carefree lives in the West, yet who instead choose to work to help their ancestral land.
Among their projects has been combating the legacy of deforestation left by decades of war. A4T saw that the deforestation deprived people of fruit and shade. A Marin County chapter of the group started the Bare Root Project, bringing 5,000 quince, pomegranate, apricot, plum and pine trees to the country.
The trees are symbols of hope and friendship, and practical gifts to improve the land, the air, and people's lives. Public gardens, cemeteries and widow's houses received the trees.
On her first day in Kabul this spring, Marsha MacColl, California-based vice president of A4T, raced around Afghanistan's capital from site to site, presenting gardeners with their wages for watering and caring for the trees A4T planted a year earlier. She also brought more trees for those who had kept their trees alive. Ninety-eight percent of the trees thrived, she told us.
Almost every family here has lost someone to war, MacColl says, and the cemeteries that mark nearly every neighborhood serve as a constant reminder. In many cases, the men who would be breadwinners for families are dead or disabled–one reason A4T's schools for girls are so important.
"They really understand that English and computer skills will help them to better lives," said MacColl. "When a teacher walks in the room they say good morning–they get out their pencils and notebooks."
Because girls under the Taliban were unable to attend school, some older girls are in classes with the younger ones to catch up, explains MacColl. The older girls work hard in hopes of one day becoming pilots, journalists, teachers, doctors, and engineers.
A4T's schools teach languages, literacy, computers, math, science and traditional Afghan textile skills such as embroidery and fine tailoring. Students make brightly colored triangular Afghan dream catchers, said to bring prosperity and happiness to a home.
Afghans for Afghans
Winter can be bitterly cold high in Afghanistan's mountain landscape, leading many to die of exposure each year. That's what led A4T to raise money for blankets and join forces with Afghans for Afghans, a legion of hand-knitters in America making hats, blankets, and socks to be delivered to those in need.
"It makes you so proud there are people like this in the world," said MacColl. "They did two campaigns for us to knit every one of our students a warm sweater and a hat. In this shipment we had 9,697 items. Beautiful hand knitted things you'd be glad to have. The distribution stories would make you cry."
When MacColl gave hand-knitted socks to her Kabul students, they created a thank you poster and posed for a picture with socks and poster in hand. They also surprised MacColl by learning to sing "We Shall Overcome" and presenting it her. "These people have so much courage," she says.
Uphill Battle
Courage is often put to the test in Afghanistan, particularly in rural areas. One A4T school in Sheik Yassin, Wardak Province was attacked twice last year, for example, and a number of other village schools for girls have been burned in the last two years.
"Some women still wear burkas, just to be on the safe side," said MacColl.
While the international community remains committed to rebuilding Afghanistan and has pledged over $24 billion at three donor conferences since 2002, the Kabul government has significant challenges to overcome. One of the most serious concerns is the expanding poppy cultivation and growing opium trade that generate roughly $3 billion in illicit economic activity. And the Taliban is still present and threatening, especially in the south.
So while non-government organizations like A4T and NATO forces work to rebuild infrastructure and provide healthcare and education, it can appear an uphill battle. That, coupled with mounting NATO forces casualties, have led many nations to consider quick withdrawals from the country in the wake of declining popular support.
But those on the ground say this would be a grave mistake, arguing that long-term commitment is necessary and that success stories are more frequent than we might think.