Greg Mortenson

Nearly one year after the U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001, non-governmental agencies continue to provide assistance to Afghans, although the American media’s reporting on their activities has been waning. Despite lack of any significant funding from U.S. governmental agencies, one group that is forging ahead to help improve the lives of ordinary citizens in the war-ravaged area is the Bozeman, Montana-based Central Asia Institute (CAI).

CAI board member Julia Bergman spoke to the Washington Report in San Francisco June 13 about her recent trip to Afghanistan with CAI co-founder and executive director Greg Mortenson. Bergman, coordinator of library automation services at City College of San Francisco, and Mortenson traveled to Afghanistan March 24 through April 9 for the purpose of locating a site for a girls’ school. A site was chosen in the Panjshir Valley, and Mortenson returned in July to initiate the construction of a school for 400 girls who have never received an education. The CAI’s second project is to acquire furnishings and supplies for two large schools in Kabul.

Despite Afghanistan’s devastated infrastructure, Bergman said she was impressed by the desire of Afghan women and girls to be educated. “Their hunger for learning was infectious,” she exclaimed. “It was a real morale booster!”

The girls she met were so intent to earn an education, Bergman recalled, that they would walk great distances to attend school. The literacy rate in Afghanistan is about 32 percent, but, while the literacy rate for men is 47 percent, the rate for women is estimated at only 3 percent. The country’s educational system suffered greatly when the Soviet Union withdrew in 1989 and the Taliban prohibited girls from attending school.

The City College librarian initially became involved with the CAI after several trips on her own to the rugged and extremely mountainous area of Baltistan, an historic part of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan since 1947. Bergman helped establish one library in a rural area and another in Skardu, Baltistan’s capital city.

The CAI’s mission is to promote community-based, locally initiated education and environmental conservation projects in Central Asia. The institute works with the local people in all phases of the projects in order to best serve the community.

In the past nine years, CAI has founded 28 schools in Pakistan with an enrollment of some 5,200 children, 30 percent of them girls. Educating girls is a top priority for the CAI, as even a fifth-grade education level for girls helps to reduce the infant mortality rate significantly, in addition to improving the general health and quality of life for women and their children. Moreover, since Afghanistan is estimated to have the world’s largest number of war widows, women are frequently their family’s only breadwinner.

The CAI’s projects are funded through private donations. For more information or to make a contribution, contact: Central Asia Institute, P.O. Box 7209, Bozeman, MT 59771; phone (406) 585-7841; e-mail info@ikat.org; Web site www.ikat.org

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/sept-oct02/0209068.html

© 2002 Northern California Chronicle