Fwd: AC and FoA Miscellany

From: Tony Agnello

Date: Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 2:03 PM
Subject: AC and FoA Miscellany

 

Salaamati,

Tony

I recently returned from Toronto where I met with about twenty former Afghan exchange students who are now studying in Canada. One of my past students, Ghufran Tarin from Mazar e Sharif coordinated the reunion of the Afghan students at the request of Ted Achilles, who recently left his post as Country Director or the US Department of State's official student exchange program with Afghanistan, to start up a new NGO in Kabul. Ted's organization SOLA, pronounced like the Dari word for Peace, is focusing on providing post exchange educational opportunities for the YES students selected by the program.

 

With Ted Achilles stationed in Kabul along with Jim Emery who was introduced to us by Randy Biggers and with Yaseer's cooperation via the University of Nebraska at Omaha's ongoing presence in Kabul we are uniquely positioned to continue our Starfish Initiatives that will directly assist Afghan women, children, families and small communities. We have conceptual agreements to fund Cedric & Norma's Afghan urology project, buy a sewing machine for a woman in Kabul and modestly assist a family enabling a brilliant Afghan girl to accept a four year scholarship to an American Universit y. We have a number of other projects, including sponsoring a reforestation program, proposed and awaiting action by the FoA Executive Committee. We will keep you posted regarding our actions in country. Please do the same and send us any newsworthy information hat can help our efforts in Afghanistan and promote the Peace Corps' Third Goal at home.

--
Terry Dougherty
260-438-0791