PARSA Discovering the Afghan Spirit

Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Services for Afghanistan

September 23, 2007 Dear Friends of PARSA in Afghanistan; I have a newsletter that I write to our international supporters that focuses on explaining our life and work here in such a way that they feel connected. I realized this month that I need to write a completely different letter to our partners and supporters in Afghanistan to update you on the results of the social action initiative in the orphanages we started this spring as well as to acknowledge the work of other organizations in our network. As most of you know I grew up here in the 60s living with my family in Karte Se. It was a very different time but the experience of living in Afghanistan-the unpredictability, the highs and lows, the frustration and exhilaration seem the same to me. My parents made a good life for us as children by belonging to a community of friends and colleagues who were creative and active in creating a sense of normalcy to our lives and who viewed life here with a sense of humor. In the 60s and 70s there was little to offer except entertainment of our own making, long trips in the country, lengthy and heated Monopoly marathons, community theater, horseback riding, dances, festivals etc Today, security constraints and the demand of seven-day work 60s in Kabul with my mother and sister, Fran on the left weeks, international friends with short-term contracts, and the difficulty of living curtail our ability to develop a healthy, supportive community here. But as my husband and I head into our third year living in Kabul, and we are beginning to be called old timers, I am struck by a need to connect and create a community that supports the unique needs of our development workers. When we were working in the Alluhoddin orphanage this year, and I needed to reach out to other agencies for support to get the children cared for, I had a remarkable response from through out the country. We now have an informal network of people exchanging ideas, keeping each other

Christmas in Kabul, 1964..with my sisters.

Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan

Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286

informed and requesting support. I chastised myself for not reaching out to our development community earlier in my work with the children. We are now joining the more formal networks, such as the Child Protection Action Network but I also now have a lively, passionate connection to people around the country who are working in small and large ways to alleviate the suffering of children here. I believe that fostering this kind of a community in all areas of our work will help us lift the fatigue that comes with working here. Also, we are beginning to see small efforts to initiate activities that support us such as yoga, mediation, a poetry reading circle, counseling and support groups that start to help us make sense out of our life in Afghanistan. (Please e-mail me if you have such an activity going that you would like others to join so I can help promote these kinds of efforts.) So, in short, in spite of the security situation, kidnappings and bombings, there are many people here that are just continuing their work, avoiding speculation of Afghanistans downfall and attending to the task of rebuilding the country. To all of you who count yourself in that categoryLets stay connected. To all warm regards and best wishes. Marnie Gustavson Executive Director PARSA Update on PARSA activities in Kabul: This year we expanded our activities to include working with the government to bring change to social protection programs such as the Marastoon with Afghan Red Crescent, and the national orphanages with the Ministry of Social Affairs. The National Orphanages: PARSA, in partnership with Afghan community leaders -Mahbouba Seraj, Maryam Gailani, and Seema Ghani, and activist, Mrs. Carolyn Firestone, reported to the government intolerable conditions in Alluhoddin orphanage this year. Vice President, Khalily, and other officials visited the orphanage and have been working to change, systemically the care for 8,000 children in the national orphanage. As with all work with the Afghan government, issues are complicated, and political. Afghan Independent Human Rights is completing a report on the condition of the orphanages around the country to bring to the Ministry of Social Affairs for action. Deputy Minister, Waisal Noori, recently met with Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan
Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286

PARSA and reinstated our protocol (suspended during our advocacy activities) so that we can work in the orphanages again, which we started this week. He has invited us to join CPAN as well. We deeply appreciate his cooperation and support and look forward to improvements in the national orphanages. In addition to this I just visited the Alluhoddin Orphanage and the conditions there have vastly improved. We congratulate the Ministry, and Vice President, Khalily for this improvement. Whereas there is still structural needs to be improved, the children have uniforms, jackets and shoes and the environment is much better. We look forward to working with the Ministry on improving all national orphanages this year and to systematizing the monitoring and response system.

Winter dri ve for clothing, blankets, and supplies for the orphans in national orphanage s:
When PARSA visited the Tahia e Maskan Orphanage last week in preparation for starting our Healthy Child program our program director, Atiqullah Kohistani sent me the following comments: On Sunday 07 October 200, we gone through their rooms, they really lives in very bad condition, worse than Alluhoddin .the following things we notice which really emergency needs for those poor boys are: 1- The shape of the building is shadow and the rooms are very cold, most of the window doesnt have glasses. 2- The rooms needs painting, the doors are damage. 3- The children needs warm clothes recently they dont have suitable dress. 4- The toilet the have are not clean and active. So as we see its better to prepare the environment before we start any kind of training or activities and the first priority is to fix their windows glasses. So, we are initiating a winter drive for helping the children through winter. To avoid the difficulties we encountered last year with orphanage staff taking goods designated for the children for personal use we have set up the following informal system of monitoring. PARSA will work with donors in Kabul orphanages of Taiman Maska and Alluhoddin, and the Bamyan city orphanage to assess the winter needs and distribute goods. PARSA is working in these orphanages and will monitor that the children receive the clothing and blankets and will check up on this in weeks after the distribution. (E-mail Atiqullah if you have any way to make a contribution to this at atiqullahkohistani@yahoo.com) Mahbouba Seraj has agreed to assist and monitor the orphanage in Jalalabad. She can be reached at mahboubaseraj@yahoo.com. Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan
Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286

Deputy Minister Waisal Noori has personally agreed to address any complaints that the donor community may have about donations not getting to the orphans and PARSA will be reporting to him for these orphanages. If you are an agency that can monitor donations in other parts of the country please let me know that you are willing to oversee distribution of needed donations. If you are an agency that has specific requests for help in other parts of the country send me a list of needs that the orphans have for winter and location. If you live in the US and want to participate in this drive please contact Betty Tisdale, founder of Helping and Loving Orphans (HALO) at www.bettytisdale.com. Betty has spent the last week in Kabul and Bamyan orphanages and is heading up a drive to support national orphanages in Afghanistan. Her website is and her email is bettytisdale@aol.com. We deeply appreciate her work. Betty is a staunch 85 years old and visited us only because of her deep dedication to learning how to support these children. Afghan Red Crescent Society and the Marastoon PARSA moved to Kabuls Marastoon (meaning the place that gives help to disabled, widows, homeless, and mentally ill) five months ago, and we have been working with ARCS directors and staff to improve the programs at Marastoon. ARCS President, Fatima Gailani, once told me that the reason she wanted to work with Afghan Red Crescent was to help the people who lived in ARCS five Marastoons, especially the mentally ill. She has declared this year the year of the Marastoons and PARSA is privileged to be part of the first stages of reorganization and implementation of the ARCS strategic plan for national Marastoons, in partnership with Taib Amin, National Director of Marastoons. He can be reached at taib_amin@yahoo.com for more information about ARCS programs. One program that has begun to produce results is work that my husband, Dr. Norm Gustavson, medical anthropologist and psychologist has initiated with the two asylums for the mentally ill. He has been working in close partnership with Dr. Homayra, and PARSA case manager, Sahela Yasin, to treat the patients in the asylums. Results have been quite remarkable and we look forward to developing activities programs for patients who are showing signs of rehabilitation. E-mail Norm for more information about this program at n.gustavson@yahoo.com. Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan
Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286

Our Contributors and Volunteers in Kabul Kabul is not the first place that an executive director looks for donor support, as the business community tends to be wary of giving because it can be difficult to know where the donations are being spent. But we have been deeply gratified by the generous support of two businesses that have become involved in supporting our programs for orphans. The Jubaili Brothers and the Springfield Restaurant have not only sponsored children in our Healthy Child programs but have had people in their businesses corresponding with the children. These two businesses are taking the lead in the Kabul community and becoming involved and invested in helping. In addition to this we have a fledgling volunteer program for people who would like to come to Marastoon and be with the children for a couple of hours. Contact Molly Howitt, PARSA Child Specialist, for any more details about these programs. She can be reached at mollyhowitt@gmail.com. Notes for our friends in the US: I returned from the US three weeks ago to our new room in Marastoon-we call the building the Old House. We spent the summer renovating this building for a guesthouse for PARSA volunteers and staff. Our first delegates, Gennaro Buonocore, Dr. Kelly Bender, Maria Delongy and George MacDonald from Phoenix had to accommodate the construction workers showing up every morning, no windows, thick dust, and my animals getting adjusted to their new home. The kitchen sink seemed to be on its own schedule for completion and day by day a new piece was added until we have the equivalent of a summer camp kitchen where the process seems stalled but I George with the head of shura in a Paghman village am quite Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan
Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286

happy to have running water. George found himself in the new bathroom, with an audience peering in the non-existent windows. Kelly, ambivalent about cats, woke up with a small Afghan cat curled up by his side. The cat and his owner, Bismullah had been displaced by our arrival and moved on up the hill but the cat is having a hard time adjusting. Our volunteers were gracious, interested and flexible. Touring them around our projects and including them in our work gave me a good perspective on how PARSA has developed and a good sense of how we want to grow. Having them live at Marastoon with us let them experience the lives of vulnerable Afghans first hand and they will be informed and educated advocates when they return home. Although security was a concern and we were cautious, I enjoyed watching them immerse themselves in the experience of just getting through a day in Afghanistan.
Maria and Kelly trying to figure out the washing machine

As a part of our trip we traveled up to Bamyan, a ten-hour trip over abysmal roads to everyones discomfort. I lost a certain amount of credibility by insisting that Bamyan was quite close for about four hours of the trip. After the second day of misguessing the distances I was lucky anyone would get in the car with me. A beautiful day at Bandi-amir lakes, and breathtaking trip up the Jawzjareen valley compensated for the George with Bismullahdiscomfort a bit. and Ali, residents of
Marastoon.

I had the opportunity work on our strategic plan with Gennaro, our Chairman of the board while they were here and he is supporting me to fundraise effectively for the next three months so that I am able to focus and refine programs next year. Our partnership with Afghan Red Crescent Society has the potential of redefining social protection programs and long-term rehabilitation in Afghanistan, especially for the mentally ill and mentally retarded. Our Early Swimming in Band-i-amir childhood programs are some of the best in the country. The community village school in Hazarajat has the potential of transforming that community and providing an excellent model for remote rural education programs. So, it is time for us to fundraise for the year 2008. To this end, I will be back in the United States in November in two cities, Seattle and Phoenix for fundraising events. We have a great grassroots funding community and I work hard to maintain personal contact with everyone. I would like to expand it so that we raise our basic operating budget for the year of 2008 that is $332,000, which will serve over 3,000 vulnerable people in a variety of programs. Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan
Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286

More importantly it will allow us to pilot a number of programs as models for caring for vulnerable populations, including Life skills and job placement for disabled people, A Safe Place for mentally ill with the possibility of instituted individuals being reintegrated into their family. Vulnerable Childrens programs that help professionals identify and work with learning disabilities and developmental problems, and our Community Village Schools, which combine early childhood programs with adult literacy to elevate the education level of the entire community to provide a richer environment for rural Afghan children to grow up in. I thank all of the people who helped me with the small fundraiser in Seattle and look forward to seeing you in November. With deepest appreciation, Marnie Gustavson

Notes PARS A Programs.

When I was in the US we received the following email from Yasin, our national Afghan director about the progress of our patients in the womens mental asylum Good news to Dr. Norman, Since two weeks the female crazy women are knowing vegetables and they are asking Saleha to bring them. Before just they were eating rice, bread and some time meat, and just when they were out they were eating alfalfa. Now they are Dr. Homayra, Sahela and myself with five women from the womens asylum asking Onions, Tomatoes and other vegetables Now, we do have to work on politically correct terminology for our mentally ill clients, but the event of having our female patients prefer cooked vegetables over grazing in the alfalfa fields has given our Afghan staff an enormous sense of accomplishment. The five women in the picture were invited to Sahelas (our social worker) sons birthday party. I had the privilege of watching them dance and sing to music and to see their sense of awe that they experienced by being part of something normal. We have some miracles now after two months of treatment. As Sahela says, they are remembering their historybefore their treatment they could only babble.

Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan

Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286

Safeullah Amarkhel PARSAs new assistant director of well being programs, began a mobility training program this month with 12 blind residents of Marastoon. He is training Sahela to work with the blind women. He found canes for them all in the bazaar, and for $150, and now when I take my walk in the evening I see a large number of them out for a stroll with there new canes One father was carrying his son as he felt his way along the road

with his cane. Such a pleasure to watch our staff work so competently with the disabled. In Bamyan Taher and Zahra have taken up residence in our offices with their children. They are just about to become parents to their fourth child. Zahra is a skilled project manager and artisan and will be managing and training the women in our economic programs. Taher will function as a liaison between villages and operations managers. Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan
Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286

Together they make $300 a month. We are so lucky to have this well trained couple to start our project in Jawzjareen Valley

Events and Announcements

Seattle Event Fundraising Event for PARSA November 10th, 5-8pm University Heights community Center Meet our Afghan Directors Our Face to Face with Afghanistan was a success this August in that I was able to meet our donors and have a candid conversation about our work in Afghanistan. In November, four of our Afghan directors will be joining me from Kabul for their first trip to the US. Please mark your calendar and plan on joining us. For more details call or email Colin Hume at 360-319-4727 or colin_hume@yahoo.com. Phoenix Events

October 30th through November 6th We just had a visit from delegates from the Phoenix area headed by our chairman of the board, Gennaro Buonocore, including members of the Paradise Valley Methodist Church. I will be joining them with our four Afghan directors, for a series of forums and fundraising events during this week, to share our experiences of Afghanistan. Please contact Maria Delong at MariaDeLongy@msn.com or George Macdonald at evjenkerr@hotmail.com for more details and the schedule. New York City A Photo exhibition by Andy Xenios Including photos from Andys visit with PARSA staff to Alluhoddin Orphanage Paley Center for Media in New York City, October 23rd and ending December 31st. The theme of the exhibition is: Documenting change in Afghan society with a special emphasis on media and women. There are portraits of children who are in the Alluhoddin orphanage that Andy visited while he was with PARSA in Kabul. Creative Visions Foundation and Caroline Firestones foundation, New Hudson Foundation, are sponsoring the exhibition. Andy Xenios has offered to donate a portion of any photograph that he sells at the exhibition to PARSA and the Paley Center. Dr. Nassim Assefi, lived in Afghanistan for two years developing training programs for Afghan physicians, has completed her first novel, Aria, and will be donating a portion of the proceeds from her novel to PARSA. A fluent Farsi speaker her book is informed by her experience as an Iranian woman, and is a heartfelt statement about life in this part of the world. You can purchase her book at www.amazon.com. Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan
Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286

The Kabul Beauty School, written by Debbie Rodriquez and Kristin Ohlson is about Debbies experiences in Afghanistan in the years just after the Taliban fell, as she worked to develop training programs for Afghan women to learn cosmetology. Mary MacMakin, founder of PARSA was involved in the start up of the first beauty school. Currently a movie is in the works, and Debbie has approached PARSA about assisting with the continuation of the Kabul Beauty School in the future. This book can be found at www.amazon.com. Our son, Colin Hume visited my husband and I this spring and we hope that he will be joining us again at the end of November. He wrote a candid journal about his visit that we have posted at: http://www.afghanistanparsa.org/content/colins_journal.htm for

those of you who have not had the opportunity to read it.

To our Donors f rom the Chairma n of the Board

Dear Friend of PARSA, It is with great pleasure that I present to you a formidable humanitarian endeavor: PARSA, Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Services for Afghanistan. I have been lucky to serve with this famed Afghanistan based Non Government Organization since April 2006 and I have witnessed the amazing progress that its dedicated personnel has achieved in the name of charity, love and freedom from fear. PARSA is not only a jewel in the desperate scenario of one of the countries most affected by conflict in the past century but also the symbol of Afghan resilience, generosity and spirit. In the past twelve month the organization has experienced a strategic managerial change from the legendary founder Mary MacMakin to a new professional structure that meets the standards of the most exigent international donors. It now reaches and caters for more needy Afghans than ever before. Its intervention mode has appropriately switched from an emergency one to a developmentally reconstructive model. It follows coherently the developments within its beloved country. When asked about what the solution to Afghanistans long lasting drama I mention two vital factors: Education and the Afghans willingness to make a Positive Difference.

Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan

Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286

And the Difference is PARSA. On behalf of the neediest people of Afghanistan I thank you for your interest and support. Gennaro Buonocore Chairman of the Board of Directors PARSA Kabul - Afghanistan To Donate to PARSA send a Gennaro visiting a resident family at Marastoon. Check to: PARSA 3246 39th Avenue SW Seattle, WA 98116 Or go online to our website at: www.afghanistan-parsa.org. Thank you!

Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan

Karte Sa-e Pule Surkh of Kabul P.O. Box 3149 Kabul, Afghanistan Email mgustav@mac.com or yasinfarid_2006@yahoo.com 93 (0)799 020 588 or 93 (0)70 284 286