Jessica, the Brag & a School in Afghanistan.

Jessica Anderson, Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, came to talk to us about displaced people in Northern Uganda and her research and work with them.  It was an interesting talk on a topic that is relatively unknown, the 2004 Barlonyo Massacre by the Lord's Liberation Army.

Many thanks, Jessica, for talking to us.  By the time you read this she will have left South Africa for home in the USA and then back to Uganda.

One of the first things we do at Club meetings is head for the coffee before the meeting has even started.  As this week's meeting is a Business Meeting I suggest that you have two cups instead of your normal one just to speed things up a bit.

The Brag is such an important part of our meeting and raises more money that fining members ever would. Here's Sue Peiser soliciting cash from willing members!

Congratulations, Allan Beuthin, on a very successful Membership Meeting last Friday.  We'll put the photos and a write up on the blog next week.

Reading, Writing, Building.

In August 2008, the Canadian International Development Agency contacted Past RI President Wilfrid J. Wilkinson to invite Rotary to participate in the Afghanistan Challenge, a partnership between the Canadian government and several service organizations to help rebuild Afghanistan. Twenty-three district governors accepted, and the Canadian Rotary Centennial Afghanistan Challenge was born.

Wilkinson and 2008-09 RI Vice President Monty J. Audenart, who helped rally the support of district leaders, approached Past District Governor David T. Robinson for ideas. At the time, Robinson was president of the Canadian Rotary Collaboration for International Development (CRCID), a supplemental funding source for Canadian Rotary club projects and programs. 

Robinson knew what to do – build a school – and who to go to: Past District Governor Stephen R. Brown, of the Rotary Club of La Jolla Golden Triangle, Calif., USA.

Robinson had met Brown – who is now a Rotary Foundation trustee along with Wilkinson – several years earlier and knew of his efforts with fellow club member Fary Moini to build a school and other educational facilities in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province. With the generosity of Rotarians across Canada, Brown’s contacts in Afghanistan, and Robinson’s experience at CRCID, it took little time for the project – a 20-classroom school in Jalalabad – to take shape.

The Rotary Club of Calgary Heritage Park, Alta., took the lead on working with CRCID, and the Rotary Club of Winnipeg coordinated donations. Four of the 23 participating districts contributed money from their District Designated Fund toward a Foundation Matching Grant with the Rotary Club of Jalalabad to purchase school furnishings, including desks and computers.

“The Matching Grant application came at a time when funds were severely limited at the Foundation due to the economic downturn,” Audenart says. “The Foundation should be recognized for being a valuable partner in this centennial project.”

In all, the districts raised over $250,000, which the Canadian International Development Agency matched by contributing $238,777. Construction on the school, Nasrat II, began in January with the full approval and cooperation of Afghan officials. Heading up the building process is Mohammad Ishaq Niazmand, who served as charter president of the Jalalabad club.

“Through the assistance of Rotary in Canada, the school will accommodate 4,000 students,” says Niazmand. More than two-thirds of them will be girls, which signifies a dramatic shift in access to, and attitudes about, education for females in Afghanistan. Less than a decade ago, fewer than one million Afghan children were enrolled in school, and nearly all were boys. Today, nearly six million students are enrolled, and more than a third are girls.

Nasrat II follows the design plan of another facility built by Niazmand and his team. Niazmand calls it “one more ring in a chain of assistance” that has enabled Rotary to “win the hearts and minds” of the people of Jalalabad and Nangarhar Province. “Education is fundamental for change in this war-ravaged country and will greatly contribute to changing a culture of war to a culture of peace,” he says. 

Robinson concurs: “There is evidence in other countries, in particular Bangladesh, that once women are educated, there is a virtual spiral of development, jobs, lower birth rates, education, and stability. Literacy is something that is so critical in making the world a better place. You can solve a lot of issues if people are literate.”

Robinson is optimistic about the opportunities for global communication and the exchange of goodwill that the school’s computer lab and Internet connectivity will present. Throughout the 2010-11 school year, CRCID is helping to implement a public engagement program to inform all of Canada’s Interact clubs and 3,500 high schools about Nasrat II. The effort, modelled on a successful online network of students in the San Diego area and at the Jalalabad school that La Jolla Rotarians helped build, aims to create a formal online relationship between Nasrat II and Canadian students.

The public engagement website, www.afghanistanschool.ca, features a 3-D model of Nasrat II, which allows users who wish to sponsor a student to create an avatar of an Afghan boy or girl to place in the virtual school. The website also shows the latest project metrics, such as the number of contributions received, and helps students create a fundraiser to support the school. Users can also track the site’s progress toward a Guinness World Record: one million online guest book signatures.

Morgan Shortt, CRCID program officer and gender specialist, says the goal of the public engagement program is to connect with up to 40,000 Canadian students through in-person presentations by Rotarians from the community. A contest challenges the students to develop a creative work about Afghanistan, such as a song, poem, essay, or video, based on research they’ve conducted. The focus, Shortt says, is to educate young people about cultural differences and the international development work undertaken by Rotary and Canada.

Brown predicts that the construction of Nasrat II could affect thousands of people in Afghanistan. “It will have a ripple effect on the families and friends of those directly involved. There’s a substantial intangible benefit,” he says. “It enables the Afghans to understand that they have a friend in Canada.”

Adds Robinson: “This is much more than simply building a school. It’s doing our part to help rebuild a country by creating a beacon of literacy in an area of the world that desperately needs it. As Rotarians, it’s about making a statement of who we are and what we stand for as we celebrate 100 years of Rotary in Canada.”