A brave and dedicated Afghan

Further to this post,

Canadians and the The Afghan School Project

here is a photo Terry Glavin took of Ehsan Ullah Ehsan, the director of the Afghan School Project in Kandahar. Mr Glavin spent an afternoon with Ehsan at the school, also known as a the Afghan Canadian Community Centre.


These are Mr Glavin's words:

I have never met a braver and kinder comrade, anywhere, ever. Mr Ehsan is 38. He's got a wife and five kids. He's one of 13 brothers and sisters from the village of Shagoy, in Zabul province. He left the successful dried fruit business his family had built in order to give his life to what he calls the cause of civilization. “Enlightenment, you know? All that beauty.”

He opened his first school for Afghan refugees when he was 25. Post-2001 he opened several schools in Helmand, Kunduz, and Chaman, then chose Kandahar for his major school project in 2002 “because I thought there was an opportunity to serve.”

Hundreds of Kandaharis, almost all women, have passed through his school since then; more than 200 have graduated with certificates in business, English, computer skills, and so on.

He's constantly under threat of assassination. He gets Taliban "night letters" on an almost daily basis. His accomplishments are largely the result of his collaboration with Ryan Aldred, of Ottawa (Ryan's a great fundraiser, a Canadian Forces reservist who has made Ehsan’s vision his own), and of course our serving soldiers. It's amazing what you can do with occasional donations of used computers and other such castoffs.

All of which is to say, again, that it's not "all about oil." It's all about Ehsan Ullah Ehsan, and the countless other brave Afghans who have chosen civilization over barbarism, hope over despair. “Enlightenment, you know? All that beauty."

A post from Mr Glavin's trip to Afstan last November:

Riding With Mad Max Across The Kandahar Plain, To Visit With Ehsan Ullah Ehsan