We had the opportunity to visit the Nangarhar Women's Prison and bring some furniture and supplies to begin the set up of the new Women's and Children's Learning Center, which was recently completed with U.S. and Afghan government funding.
New and repaired plumbing has added functional bathrooms with showers, a large water tank for washing, laundry and personal hygiene. The entire complex has been repainted and repaired and improvements have been made to the grounds and inmate quarters.
We brought fabric, sewing kits, sewing supplies, furniture, books for women and children, art supplies and children's toys for the new center. We met with the women to discuss nutrition, hygiene and family health issues, with the teenagers and young women to make beaded bracelets and meet with the young women, and organized the children into two play groups where they learned to take turns sharing puzzles, games and craft projects.
I spent the majority of the gathering time with the children, who were ages 5-12. At first, when the puzzles and books and toys were brought out, there was a frenzy to try and take the items for themselves, but eventually they understood that the purpose of this gathering time was to sit and share the experience of watching each child take a turn and put the puzzles together.
It became apparent early on in this process that most of the children had not been in any kind of a learning or school setting for some time, if ever, and had to be shown how to sit in a circle on the floor together, facing each other, and then to allow each child to hold the one puzzle, take the puzzle pieces out and place them on the floor, and watch as the child whose turn it was, was allowed to figure out for themselves which puzzle pieces fit into which space. As each child accomplished this task, I would invite them to clap their hands and applaud the accomplishment. At first this seemed strange to them, as they had obvious never done this before. But after about six or seven turns with the puzzle, they learned how to wait their turn, pass the puzzle to the next child after their puzzle was completed, and applaud for each other as the puzzles were completed.
The desperate need for the children to be provided with regular and ongoing teaching by a loving and competent teacher is almost impossible to over emphasize. At one point during the day when we had gone outside of the classroom into the compound courtyard, to take pastel colored chalk and draw hearts and flowers and smiley faces on the sidewalks, two of the smallest children in our group began to scrap and fight, and to try and take each other's chalk pieces. They began to hit each other rather fiercely. The two little children, probably no more than 3-4 years in age, were both standing on a ledge above me, so they were about at my head's height. I reached out and gently tugged at both of them and held them close to me, and said through the translator: 'We must learn to be kind to each other, to be friends, and love each other, to be gentle,' and then gave them both a hug. The two put their arms around me and hugged me back and began to smile. As I turned around I realized that all of the other children in the group had stopped to watch, and there were tears in the eyes of several children. The brutality and violence they experience has been such a part of their lives, they are astonished to witness tenderness.
New and repaired plumbing has added functional bathrooms with showers, a large water tank for washing, laundry and personal hygiene. The entire complex has been repainted and repaired and improvements have been made to the grounds and inmate quarters.
We brought fabric, sewing kits, sewing supplies, furniture, books for women and children, art supplies and children's toys for the new center. We met with the women to discuss nutrition, hygiene and family health issues, with the teenagers and young women to make beaded bracelets and meet with the young women, and organized the children into two play groups where they learned to take turns sharing puzzles, games and craft projects.
I spent the majority of the gathering time with the children, who were ages 5-12. At first, when the puzzles and books and toys were brought out, there was a frenzy to try and take the items for themselves, but eventually they understood that the purpose of this gathering time was to sit and share the experience of watching each child take a turn and put the puzzles together.
It became apparent early on in this process that most of the children had not been in any kind of a learning or school setting for some time, if ever, and had to be shown how to sit in a circle on the floor together, facing each other, and then to allow each child to hold the one puzzle, take the puzzle pieces out and place them on the floor, and watch as the child whose turn it was, was allowed to figure out for themselves which puzzle pieces fit into which space. As each child accomplished this task, I would invite them to clap their hands and applaud the accomplishment. At first this seemed strange to them, as they had obvious never done this before. But after about six or seven turns with the puzzle, they learned how to wait their turn, pass the puzzle to the next child after their puzzle was completed, and applaud for each other as the puzzles were completed.
The desperate need for the children to be provided with regular and ongoing teaching by a loving and competent teacher is almost impossible to over emphasize. At one point during the day when we had gone outside of the classroom into the compound courtyard, to take pastel colored chalk and draw hearts and flowers and smiley faces on the sidewalks, two of the smallest children in our group began to scrap and fight, and to try and take each other's chalk pieces. They began to hit each other rather fiercely. The two little children, probably no more than 3-4 years in age, were both standing on a ledge above me, so they were about at my head's height. I reached out and gently tugged at both of them and held them close to me, and said through the translator: 'We must learn to be kind to each other, to be friends, and love each other, to be gentle,' and then gave them both a hug. The two put their arms around me and hugged me back and began to smile. As I turned around I realized that all of the other children in the group had stopped to watch, and there were tears in the eyes of several children. The brutality and violence they experience has been such a part of their lives, they are astonished to witness tenderness.
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