By JOHN MORDECAI                                JMORDECAI@BCNNEW.COM

All eyes were on Afghanistan Sunday night when the United Nations Committee of New Canaan held a forum of New Canaan held a forum featuring presentations from Aid Afghanistan founder Hasina Sherjan, and Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll. The two discussed a multitude of problems facing the area, and what kind of role the U.S government has played over the years. Sherjan's focus was on education as her Aid Afghanistan organization seeks to provide schooling for females who were denied education during the rule of the Taliban Coll discussed the region on an international level, bringing up points from his recent book "Ghost Wars", his account of U.S. involvement with the country while he was there as foreign correspondent. The two spoke to a near-capacity audience in the Lamb Room of the New Canaan Library. Sherjan's appearance is a port of a fundraising effort the town U.N.

Sherjan's presentation was preceded by a series of slides depicting children and young adults in Afghanistan; some at work, some at play and some in school under her instruction.

Sherjan first left her home country in 1979, just before the massively destructive 10-years Soviet invasion that launched at the end of that year. Sherjan in the meantime was educated in the U.S., eventually graduating from American University in Washington, D.C. During that time, following the Soviet invasion and a communist coup d'etat and the rise of the Taliban regime, female teachers were forbidden to teach the girls' schools and colleges were shut down, severely damaging both boys' and girls' education. In 1999, Sherjan tried in vain to convince the Taliban government to reopen schools for girls.

With the help of  private donations, she was able to open five underground classes for 250 girls. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Sherjan was able to setup Aid Afghanistan, setting up three schools for roughly 1,500 girls, with the financial assistance of the Danish Government. Early last year Blabey and the town U.N. Committee elected to fund a new school for 500 girls. The committee's first major event this past June was a presentation by filmmaker Juliana Penaranda, who accomplished Sherjan to Afghanistan in late 2001 to document her efforts there on file. The primary goal of Aid Afghanistan schools is to provide an accelerated learning program for women and girls to replace the years of lost education denied to them during Taliban rule. committee is conducting to raise both funds for a new school for girls and awareness of her work. The goal is to raise $45,000, which would fund a full year of schooling. Susan E. Blabey chairperson of the committee's fund driver, stressed the importance of spreading education in that country." If we want a stable Afghanistan and a stable world, it's important that we support this , "she said. The curriculum is designed to incorporate the women back into the regular school system at their age-appropriate levels, with the goal moving each student up two grade levels per year. Sherjan reports that the women are extremely motivated and work very hard, with some moving up two grade levels in just half a year. She hopes the schools can expand to all areas of the country, which she stresses the importance of, as it currently has a literacy rate of less than 4 percent. She said that almost half of the girls being taught are at the first or second grade level, with about 35 percent  being over age.

News-Review photo/John Mordecal     
          
Aid Afghanistan founder Hassina Sherjan Spoke to a crowd Sunday at New Canaan Library about the condition of education in her home country. She was joined by Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll, who was a correspondent in Afghanistan.

Sherjan said "it's miracle that the program has gotten off the ground, and expressed a measure of surprise at promoting her organization in town, which she was scheduled to do from Oct 1 to 6, a visit that has her scheduled to talk to civic groups, churches, and each school. "I never thought I would ever be in (New Canaan). " she said "It warms my heart that people on the other side of the world care this much about Afghanistan. Coll spoke after Sherjan. Focusing first on the Soviet invasion, Cole pointed out that the attack was completely unprovoked and before the devastation that followed, Afghanistan was forward thinking, set on modernization and largely a peaceful country. He said the U.S. Government did not seem to consider aiding in its rebuilding until after Sept. 11, 2001. Both Coll and Sherjan expressed doubt that Afghanistan will ever be 100 percent free of Taliban operatives, but Coll said the country has been doing better since Sept 11, with the people possessing a strong desire to work for a better future. He stressed  the importance of Sherjan's efforts to educate more of its population. "They are holding together becuase of a national appetite to make a better place," he said  "And these women and girls are the best buffer against the warlords."

By Edward H. Zimmerman

Forbidden to attend school in a war-torn country where education was already badly disrupted, girls in Afghanistan who once aspired to be doctors, lawyers and educators are now clamoring for education, Hassina Sherjan, founder and chairman of Aid Afghanistan, told the United Nations Committee of New Canaan at a public forum Sunday at the New Canaan Library.

The Taliban denied all Afghan girls the right to basic schooling, she said, but the country’s girls remain eager to study and learn. They can often move through two grade levels within six months, taking examination as often as they can.

The UN Committee has launched a drive to raise $45,000 to fund the establishment of a school for girls in Afghanistan.

Three millions students have returned to Afghan schools and 35 percent of the girls are over aged for their classes. Ms. Sherjan said. The tragedy of so many girls denied education is underscored, she said, by the fact that women in their 30s are seeking second grade schooling.

There are 7,000 schools including 2,000 “non-formal” schools, in a country that needs 21,000, she said. A native Afghanistan, Ms. Sherjan has worked first covertly and now openly, to restore women’s education in the country for almost a decade.

The funds being sought in New Canaan will pay for teachers, who earn $70 a month, she said, as well as facility rental, classroom equipment and material for a school serving as many as 500 girls.

With financing from the Danish Government, Ms. Sherjan reported, Aid Afghanistan has established three schools in the provinces of Ghazni, Parwan and Bamyan, providing education for almost 1,500 girls.

Supporting her efforts at Sunday’s forum was Steve Coll, managing editor of The Washington Post, who covered Afghanistan as a foreign correspondent for the newspaper from 1989 until 1992, and is the author of “Ghost Wars.” A best selling account of the CIA’s on-again,  off-again involvement in the country from the Soviet Union’s battle to take over Afghanistan until efforts to capture or Kill Osama bin  Laden after 1998.Mr. Coll, describes the Soviet efforts, first through inept Communist cells centered in
 

 Afghan cities and then, in 1979, with an invasion against which the CIA in adjoining Pakistan “qaurtermastered” for the Jihad by providing funding and huge quantities of weapons.

When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan after failing to conquer it, the U.S. did not work with an available coalition to build a stable political climate in the country, Mr. Coll said.

 Afghanistan fell behind other priorities in Washington, but the U.S., which continued to fund those now identified extremists until 1992, walked away without trying to reconstruct the country. This enables Taliban, which was an instrument of the Pakistan army, to impose its radical Islam policies upon Afghanistan, he added.

In the wake of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, its cities are controlled by fragments of leftover Communist parties, he said, while the Moujahadeen has not always lived in the dark ages, Mr. Coll said; it was a land-locked country living under constitutional order until outsiders changed the way it evolved. Until the Taliban, women had been a major factor in holding the country together, he said.

Looking to the pending Afghanistan elections, Mr.Coll voiced concern over “whether people will stand in line to vote.” There is little likelihood of violence in northern sections of the country, he said, but remnants of the Taliban remain in the south and east.

“The Taliban is not going to go away,” Ms. Sherjan warned, nothing that after taking over universities, it turned them into seminaries promoting the Taliban religious philosophy. There curriculum is now being updated, she said.

Asked about the current UN presence in the country, she said its role is “around the edges,” as military control is in the hands of NATO and U.S armed forces ( there are purportedly 5,500 NATO and 9,000 U.S troops in the country). A UNICEF group is working with the Ministry of Education, she said in candor, but 75 percent of its funds are spent on overhead, and its expenditures for housing have pushed up real estate prices.

“They could use their money in a better way,” she added. Ms. Sherjan’s family came to the United State in 1979, and she graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. After returning to her native country in an unsuccessful effort to persuade the Taliban to re-open schools to girls,

she opened five clandestine classes for them with private funding. After the Taliban’s defeat in 2002, Ms. Sherjan set up Aid Afghanistan of which she is chairman and director, to raise funds for schools for countless uneducated Afghan girls.

In answer to an audience question about the local UN Committee’s ability to audit expenditures of its Aid Afghanistan School Project, Susan E.Balbey chairman of the fundraising committee, said that Denmark closely monitors the funding and operations of its schools under Aid Afghanistan’s aegis, and that the New Canaan committee will supervise its funding in the same manner.

“They could use their money in a better way,” she added. Ms. Sherjan’s family came to the United State in 1979, and she graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. After returning to her native country in an unsuccessful effort to persuade the Taliban to re-open schools to girls, she opened five clandestine classes for them with private funding. After the Taliban’s defeat in 2002, Ms. Sherjan set up Aid Afghanistan of which she is chairman and director, to raise funds for schools for countless uneducated Afghan girls.

In answer to an audience question about the local UN Committee’s ability to audit expenditures of its Aid Afghanistan School Project, Susan E.Balbey chairman of the fundraising committee, said that Denmark closely monitors the funding and operations of its schools under Aid Afghanistan’s aegis, and that the New Canaan committee will supervise its funding in the same manner.

The UN Committee notes in its appeal that “millions” of Afghan children have lived in poverty, without peace, education or health care” for 24 years. Educational opportunity for girls is key to the nation’s long term recovery and stability, it says, nothing that the school will establish “catch up.” Or remedial education for girls ages 12 to 16 and reintegrate them into the regular school system at the age appropriate level.

Ms. Sherjan was introduced by Ms. Blabey. C.W. “Pete” Runnettee, with Al Knaus, a co-chairman of the committee, introduced Mr. Coll.

Contributions to the committee’s drive and checks payable to Aid Afghanistan may be sent to the United Nations Committee of New Canaan, P.O.Box 446, New Cannan, CT 06840.

As a 501©(3) Organization per the IRS, Aid Afghanistan contributions qualify as tax deductible.

 

Helping Afghan girls 'Catch Up'

ByAlison Damast                                Staff/Writer                                                      
NEW CANAAN --- Girls in Afghanistan banned from school during the decade long rule of the Taliban are beginning to return to the classroom, Hassina Sherjan, an Afghanistan native, told students at New Canaan Country School Yesterday.           Sherjan has spent the past few years building schools for girls in Afghanistan, where most of the 17- and 18-year-old girls read at first- or second grade levels. "We are trying to help them catch-up," Sherjan told the students, who were from the sixth to nine grades. "Five million students are coming back to schools. There aren't enough facilities, but there is an urgent need for them to get an education." Sherjan is the founder of Aid Afghanistan, a nonprofit organization based in Afghanistan that has brought 2,100 girls back to school in the past two years. In 1999, under the oppressive Taliban rule, Sherjan established five underground schools for 250 girls. After the Taliban regime crumbled in 2002 thanks to American Military action, Sherjan, who lives in Kabul, raised money from Denmark, Japan and Germany. The Taliban had been sheltering members of Al-Qaida, which had carried out the Sept 11,2001, terror attacks against the United States. Since then, the organization has placed 1,100 girls in schools in Kabul and 1,000 in the surrounding provinces. Her work attacked the interest of the New Canaan United Nations Committee, which is helping her raise $ 45,000 for a school in northern Afghanistan that will serve 500 teenage girls.

 New Canaan Country School is helping by collecting notebooks, pens and other items for the students.

The 50-year-old New Canaan United Nations Committee takes on humanitarian projects that support the goals of the United Nations. Most recently, the group raised money to help clear a Cambodian village of land mines. This year, the group entered to take on a cause that would help Afghanistan, said Pete Runette, co-chairman of the committee. "Primarily becuase of what happened in Afghanistan for the last few years and our country's involvement in Afghanistan before and after Sept. 11, we felt that we as citizens had an obligation to help," Runettee said. "We connected with Hassina,and we were very taken by her energy and the work that she had been doing.

We thought that she could really use our help." Over the past few days, the committee has taken Sherjan on  a speaking tour of New Canaan, introducing her to students and community and religious groups. The Committee will raise money through mailings and other efforts. During her visit to New Canaan Country School yesterday, Sherjan played students a video that showed the schools in Afghanistan and the difficulties facing many students. The need for new schools is pressing, Sherjan said.

About 5 million students tried to return to school last year. But the country's 7,000 schools are far short of the 21,000 needed, she said.
 

Nadler/Staff Photo    

Speaking to students yesterday at New Canaan Country School, Hassina Sherjan describes how Afghan women saw through the burka, a full veil and head-to-toe cloak, during Taliban rule.

Overcrowding means students can attend school for three hours a day. They spend the rest of their day on the streets, doing odd jobs to earn money for their families, she said. "They either work by selling things, begging on the street, selling newspapers or polishing shoes,". She Said. "That is what most of the kids do, but it is not what they want to do. They want to play and have friends and go to a school like you, but they don't have the time." Though most of the students are the ages of high school seniors in the United States and read at the level of second-graders, they are determined, Sherjan said. Some have completed two or three grade levels in one year, she said. Topsy Post, an eight and ninth-grade teacher at the school and a member of the U.N. committee, said Sherjan illustrated Afghanistan's need.