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SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION
Girls’ High School Barg-e-Matal, Afghanistan
Peace is not something you wish for. It’ s something you work for.
The people of Barg-e- Matal district in Afghanistan’ s Nuristan
$ 150,000 province can’ t seem to
needed catch a break.
Their communities are isolated by geography, perched high on the steep, wooded slopes of the Hindu Kush Mountains, just steps from the Afghan-Pakistan border. The difficult terrain, however, provides much-desired cover for heavily armed extremist fighters from both sides of the border. Nuristan has also become part of the“ heroin highway” into Pakistan.
Years of fighting have decimated development efforts. Communication and health care are virtually nonexistent. Taliban control the only road in the eastern third of the province, intimidating, taxing, and challenging anyone who tries to move through the area.
“ This is one of the most conflicted areas in Afghanistan,” Mortenson said.“ Eight of 11 American Medal of Honor recipients earned those medals while fighting in that region. This is hard-fought ground.”
Not a single school has been built in Nuristan since 2009. Yet elders know education is critical, said Ghulam Allah, former provincial police chief.“ If children are uneducated, insurgents hire them for fighting and it will never end.”
And they most emphatically do not want that. So the elders have asked CAI to help replace a girls’ high school that was destroyed three years ago.
“ When I was a student, we had a 16- room girls’ high school in Barg-e-Matal, but after I graduated it was burned by the Taliban,” said Atifa Nuristani, a provincial council member.“ When the wood structure burned, the walls fell down. That was during heavy fighting time when Taliban came and destroyed every-
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