Early last December, Susan Erb, project manager for Save the Children’s Afghanistan programs, met with Islesboro Central School students to discuss what life is like for children in Afghanistan. The presentation, arranged by guidance counselor Kathy Hayes, covered topics ranging from the details of daily life in Afghanistan, including school and chores, to how children are educated to recognize and avoid land mines. Nearly ten million children under the age of twelve live in Afghanistan, with an approximately equal number of live land mines littering the landscape. The Save the Children organization coordinates community-based activities to help raise land mine awareness and reduce unsafe behavior by children, like taking a short-cut through a field instead of staying on the familiar path home.
Maine Public Radio covered the presentation and highlights were broadcast on Dec. 2 on Maine Things Considered. Erb, home for the holidays visiting family and friends in the Belfast area, has been working in Afghanistan since last February. After a whirlwind mid-coast Maine visit, much of it spent giving presentations to various organizations in the area, Erb is now back in Kabul City, where she plans to stay until July.
It is unusual for Erb, as a woman, to be working in this traditional Moslem environment. She is required to keep her head covered, and is not allowed to drive, walk alone, go out at night, wear what she wants or go where she would like to go.
A typical day for Erb begins early with some quiet time contemplating the Hindu Kush Mountains before cooking breakfast for the five people with whom she shares housing. At work, she meets with staff, deals with security issues and reports, trains new workers, checks on progress of programs in place, and manages to squeeze in a quick workout before dinner and bed. She is left with little time in which to dwell on the fact that she is living and working in one of the most dangerous and volatile places on the planet. The city is wracked with instability and violence, and bombings are not uncommon.
Save the Children’s programs in Afghanistan focus on the immediate and long-term needs of the poorest women and children in the country, including maternal and child health care, education, economic opportunities and education relating to child protection and landmine avoidance. Save the Children is a nonprofit international children’s relief organization. It launched cross-border programs into Afghanistan in 1989, and in 1995 it initiated health, economic opportunities and land mine education programs from within the country. Save the Children currently has programs in Kabul City, Mazar-I Sharif, Andkhoy, Maimana, Sar-i-Pul and Shiberghan.