A MESSAGE FROM RAWA THIS HOLIDAY SEASON:

Keep the Light of Hope Alive Support RAWA’s Orphanage Program

UNICEF and other sources say:
- 60% of children have lost at least one member of their family or close relatives

- Over 600,000 children sleep on the streets.- For every 50,000 there is only one physician

- 100,000 children are disabled - 60,000 children in Afghanistan are addicted to drugs- Over 37,000 children work and beg in the streets of Kabul alone

- There are about 8,000 former child soldiers

- An estimated one million are child labourers in Afghanistan.

These heart-wrenching statistics about the Afghan children have made the RAWA residential children’s projects the cornerstone of our social programs. The children have been the prime victims of the three decades of unprecedented wars and brutalities.They need help dealing with the trauma of homelessness, hunger, disability, and abuse.

If we educate and aid this next generation of Afghans to grow up in a peaceful environment,we can guarantee a prosperous Afghanistan.

With more than 20 years of experience in running children’s projects, RAWA has createda framework for the children that teach them to respect and love each other regardless of language, religion, race, sex, color, etc.

To learn more about the lives of the children in the RAWA orphanages, please visit: http://www.rawa.org/orphanages.htm CharityHelp International (CHI, http://www.charityhelp.org)/, a US based organization teamed with RAWA to launch the Child Sponsorship project in late 2004. This project enables people around the world to sponsor Afghan children. Today, the project is helping more than 200 children rebuild their lives in RAWA’s program.

As a sponsor, you can build a relationship with your child through regular exchange of emails containing text and photographs. In addition, you will also get regular updates about the orphanage program and events from CHI and RAWA with pictures and slideshows.

View a slideshow of child-sponsor communications here: http://www.charityhelp.org/rawa/slideshow1 Supporting these children is not only a gift to them as individuals; it is a gift to the world's future. Against staggering odds, they have made it this far, surviving as lights of hope through the darkest of nights. It is up to us to help them continue to shine.

”-Jennifer A. Hartley, CHI Board Membe

r Join us in keeping the light of hope burning through the darkest of nights!

For less than a dollar a day, you can provide on-going support to complement our childsponsorship program. To view the children who you can sponsor and communicate with on a regular basis,please visit: https://www.charityhelp.org/rawa. After you view these children, you can select one and sponsor this child using your own computer. Please note that we find we must increase the sponsorship rates due to the high inflation rate in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Although we are holding the existing rate until the end of this year, the new rates are going to be about $6 higher thanthe old rates. (In the last 6 months 1 kg of rice has gone from 33 to 75 rupees.)

Thank you for your continuing support.RAWA

Benazir & us

Dear Globe Editor,
I returned to the US from Pakistan on Dec. 19th. For three weeks I traveled extensively around Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and its surrounding villages. It amazed me to talk to such a variety of people with so many different opinions. One thing was consistently put to me wherever I went: “What is happening in the US? It is the greatest country in the world. What are they thinking?”

In order to find out the truth one has to make an extra effort, which means more than watching television and reading the local newspaper. Most of us are too busy and apathetical to make that extra effort.
Our press habitually presents a slant with reports of Benazir Bhutto as the shining star of democracy in Pakistan. The recent Globe article, “US efforts for stability in key ally are shaken” (Dec.28), on our government’s meddling in Pakistan’s politics, shows why our press has been so biased in favor of Ms Bhutto. Even before this terrible assassination, only her friends and fellow party members were quoted.

It was a terrible thing for her to be assassinated but not unpredictable. During her first public appearance in the country there were 20,000 troops guarding her within an armored vehicle. Yet a suicide bomber got within range of that vehicle. This next public appearance she was not so lucky. With her liberal political leanings and her ties to the US, it is extremely dangerous for her to be in public outside an armored vehicle.
It’s worth remembering we created al-Qaeda and this jihadi movement, along with Gen Zia, to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. We actively recruited, around the Middle East and Afghanistan, those who wanted to fight the godless communists. I met a retired Pakistan general of those days who said when asked by US state department officials what he thought of the idea of this recruiting said “It is a good idea but what do we do with them when we are done?” We didn’t care about that and pulled out as soon as the communist did. To this, the Pushtun have a saying: “If you leave a cesspool in your neighbor’s back yard, someday the mosquitoes will come and bite you”.

The people of Pakistan praise our country immensely but are continually puzzled by each step our foreign policy takes. Just after 9-11 the government of Pakistan, along with the US Ambassador in the country, requested $14 million to rebuild the schools of the North West Frontier Province and the Tribal Areas. They knew this was to be a war on ignorance and that lack of education was the root cause of the problem. President Bush turned them down. He found the slogan “war on terror” to be a more catchy slogan for his administration of calamity. My friends greeted me in Lahore in Nov. 2001 and said “It is good you folks are getting rid of the Taliban, but you won’t stay, there is no oil in Afghanistan”. We have stayed in Afghanistan, just barely and just enough to take one misstep after another.

When are the citizens of this country going to realize that our short-sited foreign policy is making this a more dangerous planet? Each one of us needs to actively do something to get us back on the path of world peace, a role we once dominated but have now squandered.

Rachel Williams

(Logo is of an organization which Peace Model School ( Muzaffarabad, AJK) founder Saeed Siddiqui is a member)

RAWA orphanage in trouble

In Peshawar I visited RAWA's Star Orphanage. There used to be 2 orphanages with a total of 105 orphans but one had to close and the other had to downsize due to lack of funds.

Pictured at top are all the orphans at the orphanage. Next is older girls helping younger kids to study. Just above here is the boys room full of studious boys. On either side are two of the top girls in their class and orphanage.


see - http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/programs/orph/
and - http://www.rawa.org/index.php

Most of the orphans were sent to the already overcrowded orphanage in Kabul. Only 35 kids could be afforded to remain. They only get meat, mile, or eggs once a week. They do get sponsored to go to the good quality Afghan school nearby. The orphanage has 2 computers in their computer lab but cannot afford to pay anyone to teach or upkeep the computers. One is now not even working.

In Rawalpindi I will visit another RAWA orphanage.

RAWA would like to build a new orphanage in Jalalabad if it could raise the funds. Jalalabad is presently the only peaceful place in Afghanistan right now. There is a Rotary Club there!
see - http://www.stevebrownrotary.com/Afghanistan/index.htm

Visiting with the villagers!

In between some of the locations we visited, I got a chance to hang our with the villagers. Sometimes we had english, sometimes we didn't. I do know some Urdu (the national language) but the hospitality here is so great that I never really have needed to learn much. My hosts usually speak better english that I do!

The two photos at the bottom are of raw sugar cane processing. The second one is of the cooking process within shed at the bottom. The big scooping hanging over the cooking pot is used to skim of the bubble on top as it simmers.

Planning of a new DOSTI school

Zamarud Shah, with school teachers, surveying the site of the future expansion of a school. Funded by a Canadian Pakistani, it will be 2 stories for grades 5-10 and include washrooms with the only septic tank in the area. The present school is grossly inadequate with only a fraction of space and desks needed.



The school is in a very rural setting near Charsadda in North West Frontier Province.

Preventative Medicine for Women

DOSTI has loaned a building and surrounding property to 4 doctors in Peshawar who have opened the only Health Care Center for Women in the area.
Launching a whole new frontier on the frontier is Dr. Fawzia, below in the middle, with her two lady health workers. They specialize in preventative medicine and visit 8 houses daily in the surrounding villages. They monitor women's health as well as social problems.
Most births in the area take place at home. These workers go out and find the women and babies and monitor the possibility of medical problems. Mother's blood pressure is checked monthly. Babies are monitored monthly until they are a year old, plus childhood vaccinations are confirmed.

They educate women on their health, including birth control, and issues concerning water and waste.

DOSTI schools around Peshawar

I took the bus from Peshawar to Rawalpindi and now have a computer with my photos so here are a few from my trails in the last few days:

Photo right is of Sufaidheri Dosti school. It is of the staff and teachers of the organization and school. At front left are Chief Executive and Founder, Tahira Shaheen on the far right is myself and Zamarud Shah, director and president of Rotary Club of Peshawar Unitown. To the left is one of the students at the school reciting a poem.

Schools in North West Frontier Province

Yesterday I met up with Zamarud Shah (Zam), President of Unitown Rotary Club here in Peshawar. Zam has facilitated many rotary projects including assisting the La Jolla RC (CA) in adopting Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
see - http://www.stevebrownrotary.com/Afghanistan/index.htm

Zam has recently retired and taken over as local head of DOSTI Welfare Organization. This organization is based in USA. Their mission statement is :

To alleviate the crippling effects of poverty on children - including abuse, and child labor - by providing high-quality education permeated with tolerance and respect. Dosti schools are committed to serving all children, regardless of their social, religious, or ethnic backgrounds. Dosti school development involves all sectors of society, especially women, and fosters the growth of healthy, economically-sustainable communities.

for more info See - http://www.dosti.org/
(alas I cannot download my great photos of todays trip so go to this website to see photos)

This is the perfect partner for Rotary International Matching Grants!!! We went to a number of their schools around Peshawar and then to a site out of town near Charsadda where they will be building a new school.

We also went to a building they donated the use of to a Preventative Care Clinic set up by four doctors in Peshawar. This clinic, in the village of Khazana, is the only one of its kind in the area. The female staff assist women in social and healthcare issues. A team of 2 female health worker go each day to 8 homes of rural women to check on their health as well as that of a pregnancy or a new baby. Most births take place at home and few women travel to clinics for regular checkups. In this way medical professionals can screen for possible problems, plus educate women on health, water and waste management.

Peshawar, North West Frontier Prinvince

Tonight I am flying from Lahore to Peshawar to meet rotarians for partnerships in MGs to help schools in the area. This war on terror is a war on ignorance. The best remedy for ignorance is education. Education brings the peace required for people to live the lives they desire plus it will make PolioPlus a success.

One rotarian I will meet is Zamarud Shah who is already doing a school. See http://www.rotary6060.org/overland/pakistan.htm

I am not sure that I will be able to get time on a good connection up there. I assure you it will not be dangerous. If anyone would like to call or text message me, my cell number is 92-306-411-4481.

I will be visiting the RAWA orphange in Peshawar as well as in Rawalpindi near Islamabad.
see http://www.rawa.org/orphanage.htm

On Thursday I will be with our partner club The Rawalpindi Rohtas Rotary Club to see their projects as well as the school in Kashmire. Hopefully by then I will be on a good computer and can work on this blog!

Kuger RCC becomes Sheikhapura Rotary Club!

After 2 years of taking the roll as the grass roots connection of the village to the Lahore Garrison Rotary Club, Kuger Rotary Community Corps evolved into the Sheikhapura Rotary Club! Sheikhapura is the closest town to Kuger. The club is a combination of the RCC and community business leaders in Sheikhapura. This will certainly make the next lap of The Buffalo Project alot easier.

Exactly one year ago to the day, I was at a gather of the 2 groups who were consulting with then District WCS Chair Shezhad Ahmed. They were asking him about the procedure on starting a new rotary club. He continues to direct them in their new club.

Just 3 blocks from the Sheikhapura meeting venue I was informed that I was the be he club's speaking and guest of honor at this, their 4th meeting!

Kujer - The Buffalo Project

The Buffalo Project started with an MG between Glenville (7190) & Lahore Garrison (3270) Rotary Clubs. Cow and calf are given to needy candidates selected by the Rotary Community Corps in the village of Kujer near Lahore. 30% of the revenue from milk, calves, and meat is given back to the RCC to assist with projects in the community. So far with this income the RCC has helped the village school and built a Computer lab for the community. Members of the Lahore Garrison Rotary Club and myself went to check on the recipients and their animals.

This project has been such a success that a bigger version of it is now in the works. District 7930 has donated $10,000 to this next MG.

FREE eye care : The Layton Rahmatulla Benevolent Trust

LRBT has 11 (soon to be 14) teaching hospitals for free eye care & surguries. The hospital in Lahore has just received the funds from for a MG with Lahore Garrison (D 3270), Cambridge (D7930), & Ferney-Voltaire (France D1710) Rotary Clubs for $14,500 for 480 cataract surgeries. These hospitals are internationally ranked as one of the best for eye surgery & care. It is run on donations only as all procedures are free of charge. To see is to believe!

for more info see - http://www.lrbt.org.pk/lrbt/about_us.jsp

above are photos eye exam, operation and Head Surgeon Dr. Aqil Qazi with myself and Shezhad Ahmed of Lahore Garrison Rotary Club

for more on Lahore Garrison see - http://www.rotarylahoregarrison.org/

This dynamic club has 22 MGs to there credit!

Fatima Memorial Teaching Hospital

Next we visited the Fatima Memorial Hospital which was the recipient of almost a container of medical supplies from Medical Bridges in Houston. http://www.medicalbridges.org/
This MG 59694 ($24,950) was done with Lon Penna's club in Glenville, NY District 7190.

Photo on the left is Professor of Surgery Shamin Ahmed Khan, myself, Shezhad, and Deputy Director Dr. Syed K.J. Mahmood. Photo on the right is a pre-mature baby in a neo-natal unit.

Adopt-a-School

Today the District 3270 Subcommittee Grant Chair, Shezhad Ahmed, too me on a tour of some of his club's projects in Lahore. In the year 2000, the Lahore Garrison Rotary Club adopted the Lucklines Elementary School in Lahore Cantonment. The building was built in 1885 and needed repairs and basic necessities. MG 14842 for $16,056 was done with District 2430 (Turkey). The Lahore Garrison Rotary Club continues to assist this school as needs arrise.

Pictured above is Shezhad (also known as Zoro) 'teaching' the kindergarten class.

Plus first grade class and teacher.

Arrival in Pakistan

Arrived after a 35 hour trip. I had to collect my luggage and check in again in Bangkok. Yikes, even with the new airport, it took me 2 hours to get through immigration. By the time I got out, my luggage had been sent to the "lost luggage dept".

Landed in Lahore with the first rain of the season. Immigration was very fast. Maybe that was because 6 of the 10 officers were women! Picked up luggage and was out of the airport within 25 minutes.

Today the air is clean and the ski is blue! Musharraf is no longer part of the army and elections are on Jan. 6. Life carries on for all here and there is no danger, honest! Much of what previously heard in our press was not know by the general public here due to the press black out.

Tonight I went to a joint meeting of 2 Lahore Rotary Clubs. Tomorrow I go so some hospitals and schools which were the recipients of previous Matching Grants.

Map of Pakistan

On 29th I will land in Lahore.

visa approved

My visa finally arrived and I will depart for Lahore on 28th Nov.!

Salem News, Nov. 13,2007

Salem News

Published: November 13, 2007 12:00 am

Rotarians help build Pakistani school

By Steve Landwehr , Staff writer

IPSWICH - If all you knew about Rotary International was gleaned from attending a club meeting, you might come away thinking its members a bit daft.They don't have a silly handshake, but they do have Happy Bucks, an allotted time when members take turns dropping a dollar into the club coffers for anything, such as the success of a child in school or thanks for a beautiful sunrise.Then there are the fines. Just about anyone can be slapped with one at any time for telling a bad joke, paying someone a sarcastic compliment or simply because one fellow wants to jab the other fellow.

Then you meet someone like Ipswich Rotarian Rachel Williams, and you begin to understand why more than 1.2 million people belong to the world's first service club. When Williams decides to focus Rotary's powers on people in need, she thinks nothing of reaching halfway around the world to do it.Williams is scheduled to head to Pakistan at the end of the month with $12,000 raised through a variety of Rotary sources that will be used to complete the resurrection of a school destroyed by the 2005 earthquake that devastated the country. Some of the money was contributed by Rotary's elementary school program, Early Act, at Winthrop School in Ipswich.

The 45 children in the Peace Model School where Williams is headed in Muzaffarabad, Kashmir, are all younger than second grade."The older kids all died," said Williams, who visited the country shortly after the quake. It struck during the school day, and an estimated 95 percent of the district's schoolchildren - an entire generation - were killed.Of more than 9,000 schools that were destroyed by the earthquake, only about 400 have been rebuilt.

Following a heroWilliams has her eye on a larger goal than this one school. She hopes to follow in the footsteps of Greg Mortenson, an American mountain climber who built schools in Pakistan after he saw the plight of children in the country and chronicled his journey in his book "Three Cups of Tea.""He's my hero," Williams said. "I want to do that in Pakistan."And why stop there?"If each Rotary club adopted one school in a troubled area, it would be huge," Williams said.Just this week, Williams asked her fellow Rotarians for help with another problem.

A Pakistani camp was built as a safe haven for refugees who left Afghanistan when the United States began its campaign to rid the country of the Taliban. The Pakistani government recently shut down the camp, and many of the refugees fear returning to their homes because the situation there is so unstable.Williams is asking the club for $1,000 to help the refugees get settled before the coming winter.

"I think it's important we do these things in troubled parts of the world," Williams said.Williams will be flying into a country in turmoil. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency a week ago and gave his government wide latitude to crush political dissent. Thursday, he had former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto placed under house arrest.The country has also been rocked by militant Islamic violence, with bombings targeted at military and government officials, and clashes between government forces and supporters of the Taliban.But Williams said she is not concerned for her own safety.'Never afraid'"I've never been afraid in Pakistan," she said. The local Rotary club has always kept her out of harm's way, Williams said.

Her fellow Rotarians asked Williams to get the club more involved internationally several years ago. She was a good choice, since she had lived in Singapore for 20 years before moving to this country after she got married in 2004.She and her husband, Fred DeNapoli, asked wedding guests to donate money to Rotary in lieu of presents. Williams used half of the donations to fund a clinic in Pakistan.During her years in Singapore, she traveled to Pakistan several times each year to visit friends, and she has forged a strong relationship with the Rotary club in Rawalpindi, a city near Pakistan's capital, Islamabad."It's a wonderful place," Williams said of Pakistan. "The people are so dynamic. I'm never in any danger there," she said, and added with a smile, "The most dangerous thing is the traffic."

If you want to help the effort to broaden education in Pakistan, send a check, made out to Ipswich Rotary (label check : Peacemaker) and send to PO Box 543, Ipswich, MA 01938. If you would like to assist Afghan refugees go to afghanwomensmission.org.

Staff writer Steve Landwehr can be reached at 978-338-2660 or by e-mail at slandwehr@ecnnews.com.

EVERY CHILD HAS THE RIGHT TO AN EDUCATION.

As International Chair of Ipswich Rotary Club, I am pleased to announce the approval by Rotary International of a Matching Grant application to assist the Peace Model School in Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. This Matching Grant is the second partnering of the Ipswich & Rawalpindi Rohtas Rotary Clubs which will come to a total of US$12,075. The Ipswich Club, assisted by Winthrop Elementary EarlyActers, is putting up $3,000 to be matched by Rotary District 7930. This district consists of 47 clubs in the Boston area and northeast Massachusetts communities The Rawalpindi club will put up US$1,050. Added to this total will be the US$5025 from the The Rotary Foundation.

The Peace Model School was started by a group of volunteers lead by journalist Saeed Siddique of Muzaffarabad and built by an NGO from the Czech Republic. The new grant will supply furniture, books and school supplies, uniforms, school bags, a computer lab, a playground as well as a school bus.

Students in the school are made up of various faiths. Many are refugees from the Kashmir border conflict as well as the terrible earthquake 3 years ago. The earthquake caused 99% of the schools to collapse, while school was in session, killing 20,000 children. An entire generation was lost. Of the 9200 schools that collapse, only 400 have been replaced. Thousands of fundamentalist madrassahs have sprung up in their place.

For our children’s future we must “wage peace” by fighting ignorance with education. To promote peace through education, I am launching a program to assist schools in the areas where many of our international problems originate; Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Did you know that 9200 schools collapse in 2004’s horrendous earthquake in Pakistan? It was the morning of a school day on Oct. 4th that saw almost 20.000 children die under the fallen buildings. A whole generation was lost in one day. Only 400 hundred of these schools have been replaced but thousands of Madrassahs have sprung up in the refugee camps.



Did you know that the Taliban grew up in madrassahs and were educated by men who were raised in a war and had little or no education? In Islam, "Heaven is at the soles of your mother's feet". You can't go to heaven unless you do what your mom tells you. The Taliban were raised without mothers or sister and taught by teachers who were angry and often violent! This is not an excuse for them but needs to be a lesson for us : REAL SCHOOLS ARE ESSENTIAL for a civilized society.


The U.S. is known for its education and we need to reach out and share it!

NOW more than ever…
your world NEEDS YOU!

Much of the developing world wears the face of violence and destruction. We are losing the hearts and minds of our fellow man.

Of the worlds 6 billion people, 25% are illiterate. 70% of these people are in 10 countries, 7 of which are Muslim. We can change this. The key to peace and understanding is education. Lack of education and opportunity breed ignorance and misunderstanding.

It is not about fighting terror, it is about fighting ignorance.