“ It’ s going to take awhile to pull together, but this is what we do best.”
thing in the district. Now … all school teaching is in homes.”
CAI is committed to helping this community.
“ CAI has a unique capability to bring creative, pioneering solutions for education to remote, conflict-ridden regions like Nuristan,” CAI Board Chairman Steve Barrett said.“ But this is a complex project. We intend to start with smaller education and literacy programs in 2015 while we work out the details of building the high school in 2016. Because the area is so remote, we estimate we will need
$ 300,000 for this work when it is all said and done. Our current goal is a two-year fundraiser toward that end.”
It won’ t be easy, Mortenson said.“ It ' s going to take awhile to pull together, but this is what we do best. You can ask anyone. We’ ve been at this almost 20 years and nobody but CAI has the public and private relationships to pull this together. We are going to need financial help from supporters, and much help from the community side, but we can support the Nuristanis’ determination to build a better future for their children and grandchildren.” n
“ It’ s going to take awhile to pull together, but this is what we do best.”
Militants kidnap children to use as suicide bombers
Extremist groups, including the Taliban,“ have a lengthy track record of using children to carry out their nefarious acts, rather than trying to protect them,” according to a recent Central Asia Online report.
Just this past winter, Afghan officials“ arrested a man in Jalalabad while he was trying to smuggle 27 children from Nuristan province to Pakistan,” the news service reported.“ The man confessed to plotting to have the children brainwashed in extremist seminaries for use as suicide bombers.”
Col. Sayed Rahman Shayeq, Civil Order Police commander, told Central Asia Online:“ The Taliban mostly use children as war instruments.”
Read more of this 5 Feb., 2015, story at centralasiaonline. com
( Source: Afghan Taliban use children to achieve targets, by Sayer Zaland, 2 / 5 / 2015)
14 | Footsteps CENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTE