Pul-e-Jawan: A Regional Peace-building Team

Feb 17, 2012   //   by Hameed   //   culture, links, Peace, university, videos  //  No Comments

Pul-e-Jawan, which lit­er­al­ly means “bridges of youth” in Dari, Urdu and Hin­di, is a group of region­al peace build­ing and active youth from Afghanistan, Pak­istan and India. In Sep­tem­ber 2011, Internews, Afghanistan took ini­tia­tive and invit­ed five cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists with an inter­est in peace and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion issues from each of the above coun­tries (a total of fif­teen peo­ple) to meet in Kab­ul. The aim of Pul-e-Jawan is to pro­vide an exchange for the youth and to bridge any gaps and issues…

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Support Afghan Female Boxers Fighting their Way to London Olympics

Feb 9, 2012   //   by Hameed   //   culture, Human Rights, links, Peace, Poverty, videos, Women in Conflict  //  2 Comments

In the base­ment of once noto­ri­ous Ghazi Nation­al Olympic Sta­di­um of Afghanistan is where the Afghan nation­al team of female box­ers train tire­less­ly hard for the Olympics 2012 in Lon­don. Once known as the sta­di­um of death the venue was used for hold­ing pub­lic exe­cu­tions and ston­ing under the bru­tal Tal­iban rule, 1996 to 2001. Under the Tal­iban women were com­plete­ly for­bid­den from par­tic­i­pat­ing in any sports, not even as spec­ta­tors. Refur­bished by the US gov­ern­ment, Ghazi Olympic Sta­di­um reopened…

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That’s what I do

Feb 5, 2012   //   by Hameed   //   Children in Conflict, culture, Human Rights, photos, Women in Conflict  //  2 Comments

I was in Dara-e-Noor, a dis­trict far to the north of Jalal­abad city. My team mem­bers and I were there for a map­ping sur­vey for which talk­ing with a local res­i­dent helped us make bet­ter and more accu­rate maps for any giv­en area. Here, we ran into Baghcha Gul. We were talk­ing about the vil­lage and names of the roads, pub­lic build­ings, etc. and my col­league, Akbar asked this ran­dom ques­tion: “How many chil­dren do you have?” “I have only one…

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No, There Is only One God!

Feb 5, 2012   //   by Hameed   //   culture, Human Rights, Peace  //  2 Comments

When I was tak­ing this pic­ture I raised my index and mid­dle fin­ger and part­ed them ask­ing the gen­tle­men to make peace ges­ture. The senior man in the back shout­ed, “No, there is only ONE God!” “There are not two Gods”, he added. I almost got into a big trou­ble. They prob­a­bly thought I was try­ing to con­vert them or some­thing. It was in my own city of Jalal­abad but these folks seemed alien. Some peo­ple in Jalal­abad know what…

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Plucked from Garbage Scavenging, Sokha Becomes an Inspiring Girl Worldwide

Feb 5, 2012   //   by Hameed   //   Children in Conflict, Human Rights, Poverty  //  No Comments

“When my father died, I lost every­thing: my edu­ca­tion, my strug­gling spir­it and my parental love and even the love from my sib­lings because I had to go away and live with others,” she said. If there is one les­son she’s learned, it’s that “you must nev­er give up hope,” she said. “You must strug­gle and strug­gle until one day you see success.” Arti­cle on VOA Cam­bo­dia: Plucked From Garbage Scav­eng­ing, a Girl Makes Good

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Team Work

Feb 4, 2012   //   by Hameed   //   culture, photos, Poverty  //  No Comments

Pho­to cred­it: Najib Bis­mil Peo­ple in rur­al Afghanistan build their mud hous­es with thick and high walls, Qal­la. They usu­al­ly tie two or more lad­ders togeth­er to pass the mud to the mason.

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The Irrepressible Pashtun Sense of Humor

Feb 4, 2012   //   by Hameed   //   culture, links, Pashto Proverbs, Poverty, Tea with a Wise Afghan Man  //  No Comments

Pash­tuns like to have a very loose sched­ule. We spend a lot of time trad­ing jokes with oth­er ‘com­rades’, espe­cial­ly if there is green tea and a nice lit­tle Hujra(guest room). No mat­ter how sad or trou­bled we are, we make fun of the mis­ery and laugh about it. Inter­est­ing read in Dawn: The Irre­press­ible Sense of Humor of the Pash­toons Part of the arti­cle: ‘Where is Com­rade Amin, our first Social­ist Leader?’ ‘He’s dead, Comrade.’ ‘And where, Com­rade Infor­ma­tion officer…

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Open Source Map for Nangarhar

Jan 24, 2012   //   by Hameed   //   Culture and Tech, videos  //  4 Comments

Jalala­good Geek Squad worked on this open source map of Nan­garhar for about sev­en months start­ing from June 2011. I am not brag­ging but Jalal­abad is the most detailed city on open street map. A lot of aid work­ers and those who are new in town use this open source map to get around in Nan­garhar. If you are using it on a smart phone it has nav­i­ga­tion as well. NGOs and health work­ers use it to plan their human­i­tar­i­an projects.…

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A “Step Backwards” for America in Afghanistan

Jan 17, 2012   //   by Hameed   //   Human Rights, links, military  //  1 Comment

A video post­ed online last week show­ing US Marines uri­nat­ing on the corpses of unknown Afghans was tru­ly deplorable.  Asia Times Article

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On the Hunt for Mullah Omar

Jan 17, 2012   //   by Hameed   //   links  //  No Comments

Amer­i­ca has been try­ing to hunt the leader of the Tal­iban, Mul­lah Omar for over a decade now. Unsuc­cess­ful to get him, it wants to nego­ti­ate with the Tal­iban. Where is he? What does he look like? New York­er Arti­cle: Look­ing for Mul­lah Omar

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