One of the founders of NEED, Kelly Kinnunen, is working on a video documentary project in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is travelling with Dina Fesler of the nonprofit Children’s Culture Connection. Among other places, they have been visiting Charahee Qambar, an IDP camp where people are living in desperate conditions with very little aid. Dina emailed an update about what they are doing and we wanted to share it with you.

The HCMF momentum is growing, and we not only took two more children in for medical treatment, but both CBS and CNN news tagged along with us for the fun! I’ll admit it makes things a bit more hectic slogging through the muddy camp with an entourage, but I am happy that they want to help us get the word out, not only on the relief effort, but the reality of the situation for people in these camps as well. I am hoping that by seeing this story that someone or some organization with more power than me can get involved to make a more substantial, enduring difference for these people.

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to go back to the camp for awhile because the security situation has become too dangerous. One of the sad realities in Afghanistan these days is that kidnapping is big business for a lot of people. It’s not always Taliban related, and many opportunists will kidnap foreigners simply because we are worth money. Hopefully somebody would miss me enough to cough up a little cash.

Yesterday at the camp, the guides noticed some creepy guys circling the area, and they even saw some of the camp elders telling them to leave us alone because we were good people who were here to help their children. My fears of danger were overshadowed by knowing that in only a few days we have built a real relationship. That’s amazing. But even though the camp elders have our backs, we have become too predictable, so Wasim transport the kids on his own now. He’s the real talent on this part of the team anyway as Kelly and I alone would never be able to coordinate this in a million years. Wasim assesses the kids to determine the greatest need, convinces their parents to trust us, ensures safe transportation to and from the hospital and handles all the admission paperwork, bill paying, negotiations and more.

Afghanistan can be difficult to navigate in many ways. Both Wasim and Najib must call on lots of personal and professional favors, and understand the ways of the Afghan people and systems to get all this done. They are real superheroes if you ask me. As for the rest of the team, Kelly is creating magic with the video and making sure that this powerful story gets told, his wife Stephanie (who also runs NEED magazine) is handling our PR back home, and I am just trying to keep the energy and momentum growing in my own little way.

We are a small but mighty team!

One of the children we took in is a 15-year-old girl who has a similar situation to Sahebo (the girl we brought in the day before), including malnutrition and a serious problem with her bones that will require many specialists and extensive physical therapy. Apparently, both these girls had existing problems with their bones, but living in the cold, damp camp environment exacerbated it to the point that they are now unable to walk. Although these medical bills will be higher for their inpatient stay, the hospital promised that it is committed to their ongoing rehabilitation treatments as long as necessary at no cost. That’s wonderful news! We also brought in a 6-month-old baby boy who has had complications from pneumonia and required more substantial medicines. Luckily, he didn’t need to be admitted and could go home that same day.

After the kids were checked in safe and sound, and the news crews finally left, we visited Kabul’s famous Chicken Street to film the local culture. It’s a cool shopping area that sells lots of beautiful Afghan arts and crafts, lapis stones and jewelry (something Afghanistan is famous for), traditional clothing and lots of fabulous Afghan rugs. I don’t recall see any chickens. Najib told me that a long time ago the area primarily sold chickens with many restaurants serving their famous chicken soup. Who would have guessed that Afghanistan is famous for chicken soup?

Either way, I was in shopping heaven and pretty much wanted to buy everything in sight, but managed to restrain myself. Business first.

Stay tuned for the next adventure.
Children’s Culture Connection War Kids Relief (Donations can be made to this project through War Kids Relief. Please indicate HCMF in the PayPal memo.)

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 11:43 am and is filed under NEED Magazine, Organizations, Photo Essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.