Fighting for peace with the weapons of literacy

One man’s commitment to the people of Afghanistan

He has survived a dozen life threatening situations, he has had “Tea with the Devil” (as the title of his German book says), he has worked as a physician in indescribable conditions, carrying out more than 25 operations in crisis regions all over the world and he is an expert on Afghanistan, its people and its culture: Dr. Reinhard Eroes, 56, a retired parachute Colonel and physician in the German Federal Armed Forces, a former Mudjahedin physician, a father of six children and a sympathetic Bavarian. He is now fighting a new war, without weapons, against illiteracy in one of the poorest countries of the world and he is doing this in his own very typical manner, using his huge knowledge, and with unbelievable success. In Germany he collects money, and after having collected 60,000 he travels back to his second home – Afghanistan – to build a new school for about 1200 pupils, boys and girls, in the mountain areas of eastern Afghanistan where no other aid organisations dare go. Dr Eroes has also lectured in London (London School of Economics) and in the USA (Princeton University, LawHerenceville High School, Carnegie Council). Why did Dr. Eroes commit himself to helping the Afghan people?

js. For a quarter of a century war, civil war and misery has ruled this small country in the Hindu cosh (1979 –2001). At Christmas in 1979, the former Soviet army occupied the country and started a merciless war against the civilian population which lasted for ten years. More than a million inhabitants were killed, 2 million injured and mutilated, and more than six million had to flee the country. It was the biggest exodus in human history. Hundreds of thousands of these people are still living in Pakistan today. In 1994, the Taliban occupied the country, supported and encouraged by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and tolerated by the USA. For almost seven years a horrific terror regime ruled, unhampered by the West: Primitive Koran schools replaced universities and schools, museums were looted and irreplaceable cultural treasures destroyed. Girls and women, formerly held in high esteem and very much honoured, lost their elementary rights, were denied any form of school or professional education, and forbidden from working professionally. Afghanistan suffered deeply. The Saudi millionaire Osama Bin Laden found protection and support among the Taliban and from 1996 onwards he was able to prepare, together with the murdering Al-Kaida terrorists, his attacks from the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

11 September 2001 was a wake-up call for the rest of the world. With a “Blitzkrieg” led by the US-Air Force the Taliban were removed from power within a couple of weeks and Osama Bin Laden and Al Kaida were driven away.

Health stations and peace schools

Between 1987 and 1990, during the time of the Soviet occupation, Dr Eroes and his wife, together with their four children, worked with the women and children of Afghanistan: Annette Eroes as a teacher in the refugee camps around Peshawar, and Reinhard Eroes secretly and “illegally” as a barefoot-doctor in the caves of Tora Bora inside Afghanistan. During these terrible years the children of Afghanistan came especially close to their hearts and after their return to Germany in 1990 they did not forget the country and its marvellous people: In order to help the children and adolescents in an effective and lasting way and to provide them with a peaceful and prosperous future in their country they founded, in 1989, the project “Kinderhilfe Afghanistan” (German Aid for Afghan Children).

In the eastern provinces of Afghanistan and in refugee-camps near the Pakistan/Afghan border they construct, run and support, together with their Afghan co-workers, medical health stations, mother-child hospitals and so-called peace schools. They set up their first peace school while Afghanistan was still under the Taliban regime in Peshawar/Pakistan in 1998. In four years, more than 1000 Afghan girls were educated there. Today, more than two years after the Taliban were removed from power, and after many refugees have now returned to Afghanistan, it is still considered one of the best schools for Pakistan’s refugees in the border area.

Setting up village schools in remote areas

After the fall of the Taliban regime at the end of 2001, Dr. Eroes built and started running the first schools inside Afghanistan, especially concentrating on the eastern provinces. Since March 2002, more than 4000 girls, between the ages of 6 and 18, have been taught by 120 female teachers in their Allaei Primary School and Allaei Girls High School in Jalalabad. In this High School, two German teachers have worked on a voluntary basis since 2004, supported by the organisation “Kinderhilfe Afghanistan”. They teach the subjects German, English and Computer Studies. During the past two years the “Kinderhilfe Afghanistan” has been able to build twelve additional schools in remote areas, especially in the troublesome eastern provinces: one in the rough mountain region of Tora Bora for 800 boys and girls, a village school for 1000 children in the poor border region of Kunar, the Paghman School for 600 girls and 300 boys in cooperation with the late UNICEF Ambassador Sir Peter Ustinov, a coeducational school in Laghman for the children of the Islamabad region, a village school for 600 children located at over 1200m in Kashmond, one of the poorest regions of Afghanistan, a girls-school for approximately 4000 children, and just a few weeks ago a boys high school for 5000 boys in Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Nangahar.

The subjects taught at these schools are the local languages Farsi and Pashtu, English, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Geography, History, PHSE (Personal Health and Education), and Religion. The schools, as well as all the teaching materials, are free. Poor children and orphans receive regular meals and “care” parcels. Some of the schools offer German as a foreign language. Specially gifted pupils attend computer studies’ lessons. In cooperation with UNICEF, the subject “education for peace” has been integrated in the curriculum. More than 1000 female and male teachers, engineers, bricklayers, construction helpers, doctors, midwives, nurses and other assistants receive a regular income from the organisation Kinderhilfe, the only income for their families.

Financed by private donations

The “philosophy” of Kinderhilfe Afghanistan is that Afghanistan is a mostly rural country. More than 80% of the population live in small towns or villages. The villages have suffered particularly from war and draught in past decades. Unlike the big international organisations, the Kinderhilfe offers its help not in the capital Kabul, but tries to support the population in the countryside and in small towns. Their financial means stem exclusively from private donations, particularly from pupils, school-classes and supportive partner-schools. They are showing the Afghans that not just other countries and huge organisations are taking care of them but many individual, concerned people in Germany are helping to build a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan.

All the Germans working in cooperation with Kinderhilfe Afghanistan do their voluntary work without being paid expenses. 100% of any donation will reach the disadvantaged children.