Afstan: Your tax dollars at good work

The power of the pen is needed too:

Amid the violence and chaos of the insurgency in southern Afghanistan, a different kind of war is being fought.

It is a conflict without guns or bombs, but with no lack of courage.

Its front lines are private homes scattered throughout Kandahar City, where each day women discreetly gather to learn how to read and write. It is a dangerous undertaking in a country where women are treated as second-class citizens and who, under the Taliban, were often barred from even the most basic education.

To make sure the students keep coming to classes, organizers offer an incentive almost impossible for the women and their hungry families to refuse: food.

Every two months, they each receive four litres of cooking oil, eight kilograms of lentils, a kilogram of salt and a bag of wheat so big it takes two or three women to lift the 50-kilogram weight.

This is a war against hunger and illiteracy. In a country well-known for its misogyny, it is also a subtle war against sexism.

"I'm taking this class to help myself and my family as well," said an 18-year-old woman, Shpozai, who, like many Afghans, goes by one name. "The main reason is to become educated and after that I will become a teacher to teach other students."

Shpozai is not used to speaking with men, especially a male western journalist. Indeed, there is an air of caution in the classroom, where two dozen burka-clad women sit cross-legged on the floor while a teacher writes simple arithmetic lessons on a blackboard propped against the wall. Most of these adult classes are held in private homes, which ensures the gatherings are hidden, informal and inexpensive.

Learning the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic in the local Pashto language could change the lives of Shpozai and her fellow students who hope to one day find work -- something unthinkable under the Taliban and still unusual in this conservative corner of Afghanistan.

But the literacy-for-food program is slowly overcoming local taboos. Families are attracted by the allure of food, but women are discovering the course satisfies an intellectual hunger, too.

"Before these classes it was like being blind," said Khadaaja.

She guesses her age to be "about 40." She is not being coy. Up until recently Khadaaja, like 95 per cent of women in Kandahar, couldn't even make sense of a calendar. "Now, we can read the billboards. We can write and we can read."

Run by UNICEF and the World Food Programme with funding from the Canadian government [emphasis added], the literacy program has almost 11,500 students in Kandahar province, more than twice the number enrolled last year.

About 80 per cent are women who never had a chance to go to school because of poverty and a cultural tradition that does not value an educated woman. Even men are not particularly well educated, with an illiteracy rate approaching 75 per cent in Kandahar City.

Introducing women to the value of education will have a ripple effect in society, says Cindy McAlpine, a development officer with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in Kandahar. "Research shows that educating women has the greatest sustainable developmental payoffs for both their immediate families and society at large," said McAlpine...

What do Jack Layton et al. think would happen should the Taliban return? Do they really care or simply dislike Stephen Harper and hate George Bush? But why then do they love Barack Obama? Confusing.