Day 6 Week 1 -- Afghanistan -- Health and Education

 DoD photo by Sgt. 1st Class William A. Jones, U.S. Army. (Released)
Date: September 19, 2010
Afghan children line up to enter the Rukhshana School in Kabul, Afghanistan, on March 11, 2002. Children, especially girls, are now openly attending the school that was nearly destroyed during the Afghan civil war. The Rukhshana School will become the first Coalition Joint Civil Military Operations Task Force project funded in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Freedom Construction Company, an Afghan company, was contracted to remove the war debris in preparation for rebuilding the school.

Public Domain

blog.usaid.gov
public domain

 I'm including both education and health together in this post.  Statistics show that Afghanistan has the highest maternal death rate of all the countries in the world and approximately 18% of infants won't reach their first birthday, giving it the dubious honor of being the most dangerous country in the world to give birth.  Another poll also labeled it as the country most dangerous to women, between domestic violence, childbirth and all other data it is just not the place to be if you are female.


I'm bringing this up under health and education, because the number one health problem brought up whenever health problems are mentioned in Afghanistan is childbirth mortality rates.  One source suggests that educating women is the best way to overcome this problem.  I just finished watching Motherland Afghanistan (links to Netflix, but originally shown on Independent Lens on PBS).  Although about a doctor who continues to return to Afghanistan to give aid to women, it does a very good job at illuminating the problem over all.


I'm going to provide a brief list of other links to check out:


Speech by Dr. Massouda Jalal at Bonn Conference 12/13/11

Dr Massouda Jalal was the Minister for Women's Affairs  at one time in Afghanistan.


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It was at this point I stopped my listing.  I found a number of articles through a "real-time" search engine, Topsy -- afghanistan.  This search engine looks through the  most recent social media listings and comes up with information which is topical.  The most current information has to do with Taliban attacks on the schools.  There was apparently some secret deal where Taliban would stop attacking schools if the government agreed to include Taliban religious education.  The government later denied this "rumor".  It has been said that the
Taliban have even agreed to let girls attend school.


There are many worries that once the US leaves, much of the aid that Afghanistan has used to help rebuild will end and that includes the strides they've made in health care and education over all.


It began to be depressing, watching and reading about the lives of real people.  So I needed to stop at that point.  I hope this provides enough for any one interested in continuing with their own information gathering.