How Veteran's Aid can help the soldiers of misfortune

Words: Glyn Strong                          Pictures: Richard Baker

Many Armed Forces veterans find it difficult to reintegrate into society. Some end up homeless and without hope. For these men and women, the charity Veterans Aid is a life-saver. Glyn Strong visits its headquarters and hostel.

Adrian Eddison-Stone still has vivid memories of the night he became homeless. 'Rough sleeping in the infantry is not the same as rough sleeping on the streets,' the 42-year-old former Coldstream Guards lance corporal reflects. 'I was f***ing scared - not about the future, but about what was going to happen to me immediately. For the first couple of weeks, I stayed around Chelsea Bridge, because it was quiet there. There was no one around to interfere with you.'

Adrian Eddison-Stone, a former Coldstream Guardsman, is one of 57 ex-servicemen currently living at Veterans Aid's New Belvedere House hostel

The son of a Royal Navy fleet chief - 'a hard act to follow' - Eddison-Stone left school aged 16 and signed up for the infantry. After basic training, he joined the Corps of Drums and became involved with ceremonial duties in an environment that seemed a million miles away from civilian life. He served for eight years, finally leaving in 1989 and drifting in and out of various sales jobs.
Two years later, after the first Gulf War had started, he re-enlisted with his old battalion and was soon deployed to Saudi Arabia, initially with responsibility for handling prisoners of war. He found the going hard. 'It was really scary, in the middle of the desert with alerts going off all the time, Scud missiles going over - everything happening so fast.'

Eddison-Stone's was one of the last regiments to return home, and he spent a further four years serving in Northern Ireland, Germany and Bosnia. He got married, but the relationship quickly began to fall apart. 'The girl I married made it clear that she didn't want to be part of Army life.' He made plans to return to the civilian world again, but not in time to save his marriage. He had lost everything - his military family, his wife, he had even become estranged from his brother. With nowhere to live, he spent his first six weeks out of the Army sleeping in his car on Brighton seafront.

Yet Eddison-Stone is one of the lucky ones. While taking refuge at the Passage, a Christian day centre for homeless people in London, he spotted a poster on the wall for the charity Veterans Aid. It runs New Belvedere House, a hostel for the ex-Service homeless in Limehouse, east London. A nondescript building on the outside, the inside of New Belvedere is smart, spotless and more reminiscent of a sergeants' mess than a hostel.

Eddison-Stone arrived last year with just his guitar and the clothes he stood up in. He is now one of 57 military veterans living there. People stay for varying amounts of time, graduating either directly to homes of their own or via the adjacent Rectory, a halfway house made up of communal flats where residents get to experience independence without isolation.

Eddison-Stone becomes emotional when he recalls the reception he received at New Belvedere. 'I can't describe it. I suddenly realised that there was somewhere for me to go. I've seen hostels and this is not like any other. Something about it just shouts, "This is a safe environment".

Someone who shares that view is 55-year-old Martin Riley, the son of a regimental sergeant major in the Royal Engineers. His childhood was spent in Army camps and he admits to enlisting to get some kind of recognition from his father. He worked in bomb disposal and mine clearance; dangerous and exacting work. 'I don't know why - I'm certainly not a hero,' he reflects. 'It seemed exciting at the time, though.' Drugs proved to be Riley's undoing and the start of a spiral into addiction. Today he is off heroin and although he hated the hostel at first, he now describes it as 'an absolute bloody life-saver'.

New Belvedere is the focal point of Veterans Aid, a specialist London-based charity with a rad ically different approach to helping members of its military family. It may be a minor player alongside monolithic institutions such as the Royal British Legion, but it is rapidly becoming the most dynamic driver of change in the battle to honour the military covenant, a historic government pledge, first drafted in the 19th century, to support and provide care to all British soldiers, sailors and airmen and women in return for the sacrifices they have made for their country.

A groundswell of opinion, from the media, senior military figures and politicians, has criticised the Ministry of Defence for abandoning vulnerable ex-soldiers. Last September, the Conservative leader David Cameron spoke out about the covenant in the House of Commons, stating that it was 'an unbreakable common bond of identity, loyalty and responsibility, which has sustained the Army throughout its history. Are we fulfilling it today? I believe we would be very hard pushed to answer "Yes".

An investigation published in March 2007 revealed that more than 21,000 full-time servicemen and women and reservists who had served in Iraq suffered from anxiety and depression as a result of their experiences. A not insignificant number of those end up sleeping rough, and that is something that Hugh Milroy, a former RAF wing commander and military welfare specialist, the chairman of the cross-agency Ex-Services Action Group and the chief executive of Veterans Aid, is not prepared to tolerate. He is a believer in immediate and enduring solutions for all homeless servicemen and women.

The Combined Homeless and Information Network (Chain) estimates that about six per cent of all homeless people are ex-Service. Others speculate that the real figure is much higher, though Milroy has no time for statistics. 'We constantly get the media asking us to confirm its view that 25 per cent of the homeless are ex-Service,' he says, as we chat inside Veterans Aid's modest administrative headquarters near Victoria Station. 'It is almost as if they want this claim to be true and that saddens me greatly.'
What matters to him is the welfare of those who have served their country and now need help to cope with life away from the Armed Forces.

'I get angry when I hear people saying that rough sleeping will be ended by 2012,' Milroy says. 'That's almost laughable. Homelessness is related to poverty and poverty is on the increase in this country. Some of our veterans will inevitably be in that group - so what will the Government be doing for them? They need to do something genuine for veterans to secure their future. No veteran should be forgotten or lost in modern Britain.'

Formerly the RAF's senior welfare specialist, and the architect of its groundbreaking community support network, Milroy earned his PhD researching the causes and prevention of military rough sleeping. The 1,400 or so calls for help that Veterans Aid receives each year come from all over the country; this is not a 'London problem'. Only about 15 per cent of those whom Veterans Aid helps have a history of mental health problems. Soldiers, sailors and airmen and women fall victim to homelessness gradually, for a variety of prosaic reasons.

Kashim Adeniran, an ex-private in the Pioneer Corps, is self-sufficient thanks to Veterans Aid

Causes range from the invisible, such as psychological or behavioural disorders or loneliness, to the highly visible, such as drug or alcohol abuse, family breakdown, poverty or physical injury. Cold and hunger can be the least of a rough sleeper's problems; violence and struggles for existence are commonplace. Milroy explains that he deals with a former Royal Marine who regularly sells his body for sex to fund his drug habit, while Eddison-Stone points out that those on the streets are either prey or predators.

Milroy himself is a 52-year-old working-class Scot who does not mince words. A small man with neat grey hair, a keen sense of humour and a low tolerance for bureaucrats, his studies for a BA in theology introduced him to the subject of pastoral care. After that he joined the RAF, reaching the rank of wing commander in less than 11 years. Milroy served in the first Gulf War and admits that leaving the military was not easy. 'It takes time to adjust, but thank goodness most manage to make the transition successfully - sooner or later.'

On his return to Britain, he led a team of 65 staff providing welfare services to more than 4,000 RAF personnel and their families, and was also responsible for managing the return of those who had served in the Gulf. He has been the head of Veterans Aid since November 2005.

Veterans Aid, which until last November was known as the Ex-Service Fellowship Centres, began life as a canteen and recreation room for destitute ex-servicemen, which opened in Lambeth, south London, in January 1932. Today, Milroy explains, it is unashamedly an operational charity unburdened by bureaucracy or costly overheads.

Milroy manages the charity's website himself to save money. Food, accommodation and new clothes are provided at point of need. What it saves in 'corporate comforts', it funnels directly into practical expenditure to ensure that physical and emotional triage is a given - the 'extras' that go towards restoring the veterans' self-respect and dignity are unquantifiable.

Alongside Milroy, the eclectic Veterans Aid team includes Geoffrey Cardozo, MBE, a former cavalry colonel, John Boyle, a sponsored social worker from the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA), Debbie Langdon, an outreach worker and the wife of a former Welsh Guardsman, plus a military psychiatrist and a barrister who both work as volunteers. The skills blend is diverse and powerful.

Over at New Belvedere, residents come under the jurisdiction of Pat O'Connor, MBE, a no-nonsense northerner. 'We're all afraid of Pat,' Bob Gordon, a reformed alcoholic, says. A former physical training instructor with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Gordon, 58, now sells the Big Issue in Covent Garden and lives in the Rectory. His fall from grace is not untypical. After he left the Army in 1990, his 'social drinking' got out of hand. Gordon recalls coming out of rehab to be met by his regimental sergeant major bearing 'a glass of whisky and my divorce papers'. Today he is lithe, upbeat and employed. He is slightly apprehensive about living alone but with IT skills under his belt, a college course in the pipeline and the knowledge that Veterans Aid is there in the background, he is optimistic. His respect for O'Connor is echoed by everyone; many backsliders speak of their shame at having 'let Pat down'. And no wonder: if O'Connor says you are out, you are out.

Milroy tells me that Veterans Aid focuses on three things. 'The first is to have a place where veterans support veterans in a real and immediate way; it is about helping members of our family, the military family. The second is that we are completely non-judgmental. If you are one of us, and something has happened to drive you towards the streets, we will step in to help - regardless of who you are, or what you've done. Thirdly, we are very determined to provide help and guidance on a national basis to veterans themselves or others working with vulnerable and homeless veterans. This is a new role in homelessness prevention and we're already well along that path.'

The human dramas that play out daily in the Veterans Aid headquarters sabotage any chance of an uninterrupted interview with Milroy. He pauses our conversation to take a phone call from a colleague who explains that Eric, an ex-soldier who regularly drops in at Victoria, has forgotten to take his medication and is causing a disturbance in a nearby cafe. Immediately, someone is dispatched to 'sort it out'.

In an adjacent room sits Vincent, who had been explaining to Milroy why he cannot face returning to his family in Africa. Currently of no fixed abode, he was recently discharged from the Royal Navy - not because he failed to make the grade, but because he felt afraid to admit to being homosexual in an environment he found hostile and oppressive. He is tearful, desperate, homeless and broke.

We talk about some of Veterans Aid's other 'clients': John, who has 109 offences involving crack cocaine to his name; Dave, whose smell alone could stop a rocket-propelled grenade in mid-air; Sandy Ulrich, who not long ago was dysfunctionally alcoholic. Most charities would find it difficult to provide these people with practical help - but not Veterans Aid, for whom Ulrich is a singular success story.

After leaving the RAF, Ulrich, a 55-year-old senior aircraftman from Pitlochry in Perthshire, attempted to run a pub, which ended in alcoholism and financial ruin. 'I was drinking a litre and a half of Bacardi a day, seven days a week,' he recalls in disbelief. Now he is not only dry, employed and living independently, but is also one of the mainstays of New Belvedere and one of O'Connor's most trusted assistant managers.

Sandy Ulrich, an ex-RAF aircraftman, now works at New Belvedere where he was once a resident

My chat with Milroy is interrupted by the arrival of Ray, which sparks immediate action. A heroin user whose gaunt face and shabby appearance is instantly recognised on the blurry screen of the video entry system, Ray is admitted quickly; once inside, he collapses. In clear distress, he clings to Milroy for comfort.

There is no lecture, no forms to fill in and no calls to the police - only the most practical questions. 'When did you last eat? When did you see the doctor? Where are you staying?' A bacon sandwich is proffered, followed by a gentle inquisition about his latest failed rehab. Milroy is kind, but honest. 'If you go on like this, you are going to die.'

At the Union Jack Club in Waterloo, a very different members' club for ex-servicemen, the Veterans Aid's chairman and president, Brigadier Johnny Rickett, is telling me about the time, 18 months ago, when he 'lost' half an hour of his life. He had just completed a television interview about the Falkland Islands, where as a lieutenant colonel commanding the Welsh Guards he lost 32 men, when it was as if a switch tripped in his brain.

'I wasn't in the real world. And I still, frankly, don't know where I was for half an hour from leaving my office until my wife came to collect me. I was re-living the Falklands all over again, which I've never done before.'

Disturbed by the episode, Rickett sought help and was advised that his 'condition' was caused by one of three things: lack of breakfast, use of beta blockers, or post-traumatic stress disorder. It was a defining moment. He knew that if he could remain traumatised by events that occurred two and a half decades ago, there would be plenty of others in similar - and much worse - situations. 'I pray for my men every night,' he says. 'If this could happen to me 25 years after the event, I can't imagine what some of them must have gone through.'

The Ministry of Defence acknowledges that a minority of ex-servicemen struggle to adapt to life away from the military, but plays down the problem. 'The majority of people who leave the Armed Forces each year make a successful transition to civilian life,' a spokesman says. 'But we recognise some are vulnerable to homelessness.'

The veterans minister Derek Twigg recently visited New Belvedere House to see the reality of life for homeless ex-servicemen and women trying to rebuild their lives. He was impressed by the support that Veterans Aid provides. 'It is unusual for someone to be homeless after they leave the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence goes to great lengths to help the 23,000 people who leave the Service each year to prepare them for their return to civilian life, including finding accommodation,' he said. 'We work closely with all interested charities to both prevent new Service-leavers becoming homeless and to provide an effective safety net for existing vulnerable and homeless ex-Service personnel.'

But what about those who slip through the net? It is 7am, just a few degrees above freezing and barely light. Westminster's street sweepers are still at work while early commuters emerge from Charing Cross Tube station. Inspector Malcolm Barnard and his team of eight officers from the Metropolitan Police Safer Streets Homeless Unit are on their daily 'wake and shake'. Barnard has close links with Veterans Aid and now routinely asks vulnerable homeless people if they have ever served in the Armed Forces. If the answer is yes they are immediately directed towards the sanctuary of Veterans Aid.

We are looking for one man in particular, whose overnight home is nearly always the same stretch of pavement, within easy reach of a McDonald's breakfast. At 7.15 we find him, just south of Covent Garden. A former gunner who served in Korea, Tommy is 74 and an alcoholic. His craggy face is partly obscured by a flat cap and he is huddled inside a sleeping bag. Predictably passers-by give him a wide berth. Barnard nudges him awake to make sure he is all right. Tommy sits up, rubs his eyes and says, 'Good morning,' before taking a quick swig from a near-empty half bottle of whisky and preparing a roll-up.

Although Tommy claims never to have been ill in his life, Barnard is concerned about his health and his safety. 'We need to get you into a shelter; we can't have you out here like this. What about Veterans Aid?' Tommy politely declines the offer and explains that he needs to go for a pee. 'But I'm not telling you where.'

Barnard and his team see many rough sleepers during their patrols and on average one a month is referred to - and helped by - Veterans Aid. However, like Tommy, not everyone is ready or willing to be helped. Not everyone can be helped either. Last year, Veterans Aid provided nearly 20,000 nights of shelter for ex-servicemen and women. Milroy is convinced that with additional funding, it could do considerably more.

Martin Riley, a former bomb disposal expert with the Royal Engineers, said New Belvedere iwas a 'life saver'

Major General Sir Evelyn Webb-Carter, the controller of the Army Benevolent Fund, which provides financial and practical assistance for soldiers, former soldiers and their families, believes that with adequate support Veterans Aid could transform the way ex-servicemen and women are helped. His organisation provides some of Veterans Aid's vital funding and has given it carte blanche to spend whatever it needs on finding beds for veterans who are sleeping rough.

More than 260 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since those conflicts began, and more than 4,000 seriously injured. But Sir Evelyn is 'really worried' about the growing number of 'mental causalities'. He also believes that public support for former soldiers has waned since the beginning of the war in Iraq. As the Services shrink in size, there is no shared experience of war on the home front; the toll taken on those who serve is largely unappreciated. Others agree.

'The fight in southern Iraq or in Helmand is, both literally and figuratively, thousands of miles away from the average person living in Britain,' the shadow defence secretary Dr Liam Fox says. 'Consequently, unless you have a close friend or family member in the Armed Forces, the general public has a reduced interest in the welfare of our troops because the war does not impact on their day-to-day lives.'

Milroy believes that it is essential that the veterans themselves be given a voice. 'The time is right for a national debate about what it means to be a veteran in Britain today,' he says. 'We need to ask veterans what they expect from their country: this shouldn't be the view of any particular ex-Service charity or government think-tank, but the voice of veterans themselves. And then we need a clear statement from the Government about what they intend to do about those needs.'

No one doubts the immense psychological pressure faced by the men and women currently serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, whose lives are constantly under threat for the duration of their six-month deployment, undergoing prolonged fighting for days or weeks at a time. The current operational tempo leaves little time for service personnel to go home and come to terms with their experiences.

And while a report published by King's College London last year suggested that the Ministry of Defence's policy on tour intervals was right, it conceded that the Services' own 'harmony guidelines' (which balance rest and recuperation with deployment) were not always being met. The report concluded that a quarter of those who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq develop mental problems.

Perhaps surprisingly, the number of homeless ex-servicemen has not been swelled by the hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffering from mental trauma. 'We're not seeing evidence of it - yet,' Milroy says, 'but we're well aware that we could do, and we're ready. We find that many people come to us several years after discharge. We are helping people who have served in the Second World War, Northern Ireland, the Gulf and the Balkans.'

Someone with practical and clinical experience of dealing with this delayed trauma is the milita ry psychiatrist Ian Palmer, who left the Army in 2003. Now a visiting professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, he is also a volunteer at Veterans Aid. 'I was attracted to Veterans Aid because it was run by ex-Service personnel and was robust, military in its methods and focused on solving problems. The whole ethos of the organisation is based on respect for self and others and the positive military values of commitment, taking responsibility, persevering under adversity and working together.'

Private Kashim Adeniran, who served for three years with 5th/8th Royal Pioneer Corps, is one of hundreds who owe their new-found self-respect and self-sufficiency to Veterans Aid. He recalls his three years in the corps with pride but admits his transition to civilian life was hard. As the sole proprietor of Midas Touch Metal Polishing, he polishes door furniture and nameplates at some of London's most prostigious addresses. 'This is a safe house,' Adeniran tells me in Milroy's office. 'People who come to Veterans Aid are blessed.'

The Last Commando - General Mohammadzai Khatool

Picture (c) Anastasia Taylor-Lind

“How old am I? Give a guess!” She may be a general in the Afghan Army, its most senior woman and its only female paratrooper, but Mohammadzai Kahtool is not going to tell me her age. Handsome, with black hair and a uniform weighted with honours, she sits behind a heavy wooden desk, surrounded by bright artificial flowers and photographs of her famous exploits.

To reach the General, who is based at Kabul’s Ministry of Defence, several check points and searches have to be navigated. Unlike our own MoD, Afghanistan’s counterpart is like a military camp where armed male soldiers are seen everywhere. One hovers in the background bringing us tea – and later food that General Khatol will eat alone in her office. Curtains are drawn creating an atmosphere of intimacy and gloom, at odds with the bright sunlight and heat outside.
It is hard to imagine this veteran of more than 500 official parachute jumps - and injuries that include a broken neck - ever wearing a burqa or submitting to the restrictions of the Taliban era, but she did. In fact she is fatalistic about many things; brothers killed and a husband dying before their only child, a son, was 40 days old. When I sympathise she shrugs: “Don’t be sorry. It’s OK. This is a temporary life. And it was a long time ago.”

Her own childhood was untypical for a girl in any Islamic country; one in which sport and martial arts featured prominently – she has black belts in Judo, Tae Kwondo, Karate. Unusually, too, she was encouraged by a father and uncle who told her she was “very brave” and should do whatever she was capable of doing. Academically she shone; at Kabul’s Ariana School, then the capital’s Jamal Mena University where she studied law before joining the Army.
“It was always my ambition to join the Army; at that time Afghanistan was a democracy, Najibullah was President – a good , honest man. There were more ladies in training school then, but I always came top,” she adds matter-of-factly. “ Now it’s hard for people in Afghanistan to see a woman the Army.”
“It wasn’t so difficult for a woman to succeed once, but when the Taliban period started they said women couldn’t work so I had to sit at home doing things like tailoring.”

The image of this intrepid woman making ends meet by sewing is hard to come to terms with. “I had a baby and I looked after children,” she explains. “I taught ladies, girls and little boys at home, I wrote and I made drawings.” Again that fatalism: “The most important gift that Allah gives humans is life – he gave us a brain. We should use it, live life to the full and be brave.”
Imprisoned physically at home, her active mind was free. She could no longer jump out of aircraft but during her darkest days she revisited the memory of that exhilarating freedom - and what she could no longer do, she drew picture of and wrote about.

While the General takes a phone call our interpreter, Darwish, points out a hand-written Scroll of Army Discipline on the wall; exquisitely executed, it reveals that calligraphy is another of her talents. “This work, it is very difficult” he whispers. “She has a great skill.”

Returning to our conversation General Khatool explains that although times were hard under the Taliban she never left Kabul to take refuge in Iranian or Pakistani refugee camps like so many other Afghans. “I love my country. I stayed here; I said ‘I’ll die if necessary, but I will stay in my country’.”

She’s been back in uniform for around eight years and although women occupy other senior roles General Khatool is now the only female commando. “There are others who want to be, but there is no capability to train them” she says, touching the cherished parachute emblem like a talisman.

Strangely for a senior military officer she has no English but speaks Urdu, Dari and some Russian as well as her native Pashtu. To have achieved her rank and sustained it is a staggering achievement for an Afghan woman – parachute jumps notwithstanding. The 500 training drops she is credited with are augmented by many hundreds more for sporting and public display purposes; jumping from fixed wing aircraft or Russian M8 and M17 helicopters into tight drop zones.

During the freedom festivities held to celebrate signing of the country’s new constitution she was the only female member of the six ‘Afghan Heroes’ parachute display team that jumped, Koran and flags in hand, into Kabul City Stadium. Pictures of this event join other fading snapshots on her office wall and, between translations, her attention strays to the looped slideshow of other nostalgic moments that flickers across her computer screen.

Undoubtedly she is a heroine and national icon, yet in a curious way she is also isolated; the only one of her kind. This is something reflected in her frequent sorties into the past; perhaps the only safe place for someone who repeatedly insists that she won’t answer any political questions?
Not long after our visit the country’s most senior policewoman, Lieutenant Colonel Malalai Kokar, was shot dead by Taleban gunmen in Kandahar as her teenage son prepared to drive her to work. Like Mohammadzai Khatool she had been the subject of many media reports and was famous throughout Afghanistan for her bravery. The mother of six carried a weapon and had survived several assassination attempts.

In Kabul’s Ministry of Defence, where the male soldiers all carry guns, General Khatool doesn’t even waer a sidearm. She shakes her head when I ask about protection. “I have been threatened,” she admits, but is disinclined to meet gun with gun. In a classic ‘bring it on!’ situation she describes rounding on a would-be attacker with bare arms. Whether brave, foolhardy or stoical it is hard to judge; she is, after all, a formidable martial arts practitioner.
The tough soldier and the fiercely protective mother are different sides of the same coin; when her sister’s husband disappeared leaving her with three children, General Khatool took them in.

She had her own memories of being left alone with no husband and understood the difficulties.
In the dim, artificial light of this over-furnished room we see a proud, intelligent woman treading a diplomatic tightrope. “Educated people are proud of me, but men from poor uneducated backgrounds find it hard to take orders from a woman. During the mujahadeen era men with large beards watched me leap from aircraft in disbelief muttering, ‘She’s magic – or maybe she’s really a man. How could a woman jump from an aircraft’!

“During President Najubullah’s time there were lots of women in the Army, perhaps 10 per cent? Now, I don’t know, much fewer – but whoever has ambition can join and there are many opportunities.”

I explain that in the UK women are not eligible to join the Parachute Regiment or the ‘teeth arms’. “No, really?” she says.”I think we are very lucky then that all positions are open to women! Commandos are the ‘first’, the elite, in every country. I am a very lucky woman in Afghanistan, because I am a general and a commando! ”

Yet there is a paradox here: She confirms that in the Afghan Army men and women undergo similar basic weapons training, military skills and fitness but when we stray into the area of frontline involvement it’s a different story. Even General Khatool with her considerable athletic skills and commando pedigree, has never been deployed operationally.

“I have never been involved in fighting; am a peacekeeper, a sportswoman. I pray that everyone will have peace and health. God gave us the gift of life; it is sweet and sour – beautiful, if only people would understand. Time is golden and we should seize every minute of it, because we will all die.”

Mohammadzai Khatool is a complex women and I’m aware that communication through an interpreter inevitably blunts the nuances of our respective languages. She struggles to convey things that she feels passionate about; between us we navigate the semantic labyrinths of operational security, gender and politics. One minute gentle, wistful and confiding – the next strident, and authoritative, she is a woman conscious of just how many forces are at play in this interview.

We take a break while our cups are refreshed. Suddenly there is a commotion outside the window; shrieking and raised voices. With surprising speed General Khatool and the soldier serving our tea rush out of the room, closing the door behind them. We are told to stay put.
After some moments a sheepish trio of women are women are brought in.

Earlier in the day Latifa, Basira and Fawzia had professionally frisked us and searched our bags for weapons. Then we were potential assassins; now we are the General’s guests. There is reluctance to explain the cause of the ‘incident’ but Darwish perseveres. The security post has indeed been breached it seems; not by terrorists posing as western media . . . but by a mouse.
I am urged not to make much of this incident but as the three female soldiers prepare to return to their post Latifa makes the universal ’hands apart’ gesture to indicate the size of the rodent. “She is saying ‘I think perhaps it was a rat’ ” Darwish translates.

Sitting informally on the settee with me as our time comes to a close General Kahtool becomes more philosophical: “Most countries see Afghanistan only as a really dark place, somewhere where there is no education, and life is very hard; but we have Afghan braveness, our hearts are big. We really want our country to go forward and we will fight for that. We have patience.”
So should Afghan women look to an Army career?

“My message to Afghan women is this; to be a good mother first, look after your babies and children while they are growing up because they are the future. Secondly Afghanistan must be rebuilt. Women should not forsake the house, but when they go out they should show men what they can do. It’s not about whether a woman wears a burqa, but whether she has courage.
“Our people need to join together; they should build factories to provide work and rebuild our country, but in the right way. In most other countries what is life about? A mother brings children into this world with hope, she looks after them, cares for them - but in Afghanistan life is nothing. Someone just walks outside and there are suicide bombers.”

Picking up on this recurring theme of instability and fear of movement I try one more ‘political’ question before we part and ask if she feels NATO/ISAF troops are making a positive contribution to her vision of a better Afghanistan. General Kahtool smiles and I am told politely: “She cannot answer this question.”

Policing the Poppy

Eleven hours after retiring from his post as Head of The Serious Organised Crime Agency’s Tactical Firearms Division Dave Wright, 50, was on a plane to Afghanistan, bringing 31 years experience as a British policeman - and looking for a “last great adventure”. He ‘retired’ as a Superintendant; today he works at the most basic levels to support and develop Helmand province’s fragile police force.

As the man charged with mentoring the Counter Narcotics Police - Afghanistan (CNP-A) Wright’s daily battle isn’t about bombs, bullets and airstrikes. It’s about creating a force for law and order that people can trust and respect. In Helmand that means seeing that police officers are paid, literate, trained, drug-free . . . and equipped with uniforms.
He says: “Nothing could prepare you for working in the Afghan environment, it doesn’t matter how much you read or what people tell you – until you come out here you can’t begin to understand the country, the people and the conditions they live in.
“I had the opportunity to do something completely different to my old job, but still use all the skills I had learned over a long career. Some of my former SOCA colleagues would like to follow me, many are curious - some think I am mad!”
And it’s a view his wife of 23 years, Christine, has some sympathy with, although she, too, was a career police officer: “We weren’t keen on the idea of him going at first. It was an important year for the girls with University and GCSEs coming up. I suppose you could say we weren’t exactly supportive! And we thought, why there; why Afghanistan?”

With 8,000 troops in Afghanistan the UK is the second largest military contributor to the international community’s efforts in the country and the second largest bilateral donor. International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander, talking recently about the move from stabilisation to state building, praised the soldiers and civilians, like Wright, who are involved in that process. He said: “They take those risks in pursuit of one shared mission: to help Afghans to secure, govern and develop their country, for themselves.”

And the last seven years have seen real progress towards that goal as Wright explains: “We have recently had huge successes with opium recoveries. In the last month we recovered 750kgs, 1,600 kgs, 1,420 kgs and last week another 650 kgs. These were by British Army-mentored Afghan patrols operating in the desert. The prisoners and samples of the narcotics are flown back to Lashkar Gah where they are collected by the CNP-A who interview and process them through the criminal justice system. The remainder of the narcotics, and the smugglers vehicles, are then blown up by explosives to ensure they are destroyed.

“ Last week the CNP-A operating in Lashkar Gah City raided a house and recovered 48kg of pure heroin together with over two tonnes of precursor chemicals in a drugs laboratory. It takes 10kg of opium to manufacture 1kg of heroin. This was an example of intelligence-led policing - a totally Afghan initiated and led operation. “It is things like that which make it all worthwhile.”


Squaddie graffiti, scrawled on the inside of a suffocatingly hot portaloo at Kandahar Airfield says: “Afghanistan is an illusion caused by lack of drugs and alcohol”. And while it may not rank among the most uplifting of sentiments about Afghanistan – it does reflect certain truths about the country.

The irony is that while there is definitely a lack of alcohol (the British military bases are ‘dry’ in every sense of the word) the surrounding countryside suffers from no shortage of drugs.
Adjacent Helmand Province produces up to 90 percent of the world’s heroin. According to Wright a number of the police are drug ‘users’ of some description. He says that until recently 6ft cannabis plants grew on the doorstep of many police posts and corruption was rife.
This sounds depressing, but Wright is upbeat and optimistic. Aided by his mentoring, root and branch reform of the force is well in hand and he claims with authority that the CNP-A are “100 per cent clean.”

They are also 100 per cent male.

Helmand has a police ‘tashkeil’ or establishment of 2,000 - just six of them are women. There would have been a seventh, trained as a counter-narcotics specialist, but she was kidnapped on Lashkar Gah’s east-west Highway 601 earlier this year and murdered. Her assassins cut her throat, in front of her son, and then they shot her in the face.
Like many other women who put their heads above the parapet in Helmand, she had received threats and warnings, but with 90 per cent of her training completed, she was determined to finish it.

Wright, who hails from Washington, Tyne and Wear, and still bears traces of his North East accent, is reluctant to talk about her. It’s a painful issue. “She was a very brave woman, but don’t take it from me; ask her colleagues.”

The role of Afghan women in the world of counter narcotics is new. “We’re helping to move the Counter Narcotics Police from a static, reactive role to one that is intelligence led,” he explains. Historically featuring only in the poppy harvesting process, women also appear on the drugs landscape as addicts or prisoners. In both roles they are largely victims of poverty, fear and a male dominated society. Now operating as police officers and prison guards they are beginning to become part of the solution as well as the problem. But there’s a long way to go.

It is a cultural paradox that while male officers are unable to search women for arms and drugs, Afghan men discourage the recruitment of females who could fulfill this role. Wright introduces me to one of Lashkar Gah’s best female officers who has had singular successes and is keen to tell her story. “It was at a checkpoint, a year and a half ago. One woman had an AK-47 under her clothing (burqa) and 250 rounds of ammunition. Another had a grenade and explosive material. This lady tried to attack me, and then she bit me!”

A wrist is offered, showing scars of what are unmistakably teeth marks.
I was asked not to name the officer and no photographs of she or her colleagues were allowed. We met at a literacy class. Joining the ANP provides access to education as well as income, something the women particularly value.

Wright comes from a household of women: his wife, Christine, is also a retired police officer; the couple’s daughters Amy, 18, and Sophie, 16, are used to his absences. “He’s always worked away,” says Christine. “I suppose we’ve become very independent – but we knew that if there was a problem he could always come home.
He is supposed to work a rota of six weeks on and two weeks off, but it doesn’t always work out that way and there are inevitable trade-offs. “He came home on (GCSE) results day, but that meant he wasn’t able to be here when Amy went up to university,” says Christine .

“When I was with SOCA I worked in London during the week, traveling from Durham to Kings Cross on a Monday morning and returning for the weekend,” explains Wright. But ‘coming home’ from Helmand is a bit different. “I fly by RAF helicopter from Lashkar Gah to Camp Bastion, then by C130 Hercules to Kabul, then a flight to Dubai, then an Emirates flight home. It can take 5 or 6 days to get in and out – they are epic journeys!”

Another downside for his family back home is the fear. “We worry every time something comes on the television news” admits Christine. “Just recently there was something about a suicide bomber infiltrating a police unit and until we found out where it was, it was difficult.”
Wright’s admiration for the brave Afghan women taking on the difficult role of policing in Helmand is obvious.

“They travel to work in burqas” he explains. “When I first arrived I asked about uniforms. They said they would be proud to wear uniforms, like female police officers in Kabul, but they had never been offered any.”

The police command posts are like small forts and although the women are not armed, the men they work alongside are. Wright arranges for us to visit one and, with the obligatory armed guards, we leave the military base to meet two female officers on duty.
It ends in frustration; despite painstaking arrangements to catch them on shift, neither is there. Wright although clearly annoyed, is unfailingly diplomatic.

These check points, east and west of Lashkar Gah, are unprepossessing. Men with glazed eyes and ill fitting uniforms share a room with sacks of potatoes, RPG launchers, AK-47s - and a single wooden crutch resting against a wall .Yet in the last 12 months more than 1,000 members of the ANP have lost their lives fighting for their community and to gain some respect for their tarnished profession.

The rewards are poor and the risks considerable. The country’s 82,000 police are a popular target for militants; less well armed and trained than the Army, they travel in small groups in hostile territory.

In 2008 the numbers killed nationally represented half the size of Helmand’s entire establishment. Earlier Wright has admitted how much he would love to see a ‘bobby on the beat’ system in Helmand, but with police officers responsible for many crimes, and public signs urging people to report mistreatment at checkpoints, it will take time to build trust. Or what Douglas Alexander describes as both short-term stabilisation and long-term state-building.
Minister for Education Hanif Atmar described Afghanistan’s four great problems as narcotics, poverty, insurgency and weak governance. The UK, currently the lead nation of the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) of which Wright as a EUPOL officer works alongside, is actively involved in addressing all these issues.

DFID is the lead UK Department on development; it has provided £7.2 million since April 2006 to support the implementation of projects to provide immediate and visible benefits to the people of Helmand. And increasingly it is being recognised that specialists like Wright have a unique contribution to make. Engagement with the local community is a key element of counter-insurgency which cannot not be won by force and ‘quick impact’ ventures alone. Douglas Alexander said: “They have brought much-valued civilian skills to the job . . . of identifying immediate priorities with the local population. Their military colleagues are not only providing reassurance for local communities by patrolling areas that have been subjected to attacks and criminality, but also working with civilians to train hundreds of Afghan soldiers and police to take charge of security themselves.

These Afghan-led operations, acting on Afghan intelligence, are making real headway in improving security for local citizens.” It’s this element of the job that give Wright most satisfaction. He describes its rewards as ”Seeing the Afghan Police achieve spectacular results through their own efforts, witnessing their will to learn and understanding that the average CNP-A police officer wants to do a good job, wants to have the respect of the public and despite all the obstacles in his way still attempts to achieve this.”

Wright walks a tightrope Helmand, as do so many of the British civilian and military staff involved in long-term reconstruction. Offend cultural sensitivities and you are back to square one. Several times I see Wright reign-in impatience, but he is an experienced copper supported by an MBA and ears of experience on regional and national special squads.
He’s been at the top of his profession in the UK – here he argues patiently for women officers to be allowed to fill in data-capture forms and get their wages on time. Does he miss anything I wonder?

“Obviously my wife and family. And when you have had a bad day at work a pint of beer always helps!” he observes wryly. Helmand is dust-bowl dry in the summer and despite having air-conditioned accommodation, the heat is energy sapping.

Sickness is a constant headache for UK troops and civilians and before each meal at Lashkar Gah diners, without exception queue to wash and then sanitise their hands. Food is good and plentiful, but the hygiene regime is strict.


One senior civil servant who has been in Helmand for a year tells me that while the issues are “massively complicated” she is “continually optimistic”. “The national drug control strategy is a good thing and an integral part of establishing the rule of law.”
British military units have also been involved in drug raids, but that is not their primary role. Earlier this year Royal Marines from 40 Commando destroyed a drugs factory in the Upper Sangin Valley along with 1.5 tonnes of morphine base. The operation’s purpose was to deny Taliban groups a possible safe haven and to prevent them regaining the ability to mount attacks against the town of Sangin.

But in terms of enduring reconstruction, Wright echoes Douglas Alexander; it is about enabling Afghans to do things for themselves.
The HQ of Lashkar Gah’s counter narcotics unit is sweltering; most of the time there is no electricity. This is not unusual. There is not enough oil or diesel for the vehicles and no cash to repair the broken window in the detention cell. Computers with English keyboards gather dust until Dari/Pashtu replacements can be found.

Helmand Province’s drugs busters have no body armour and travel in soft-skinned vehicles. An IED recently destroyed the front of one but left the occupants unscathed – they were lucky. If it had been travelling faster they would all be dead.
Wright takes me to the office of Colonel Abdul Qadir, a genial, bearded family man who offers melon and thanks me for my interest in his problems. Somewhere in this compound 142 kilos of heroin are secured - the fruits of a recent raid in the Marjah area of Helmand
Outside he has shown us sacks of chemicals used in the process of heroin production, drums and tanks confiscated from a home laboratory.

This is heartening in a region where many people believe that the police are corrupt. The basic wage for an officer is $100 per month, rising to $130 for a sergeant. There is no pension scheme and no medical insurance for those injured on duty. Later Wright points out an officer who was shot through the neck and side only a week earlier. He is not in uniform but is attending police literacy classes that attract a further $20 a month “as an incentive”. The entrance and exit wounds below his hairline are healing well, but plain to see.

Wright explains how rigour is being injected into the training system through introduction of an eight week Focused District Development course. It teaches standardised police skills, law, ethics, survival training and use of equipment. (It also guarantees that those with a drug problem go cold turkey for two months!) All ranks go through the process.

The opium-centric economy has made Helmand unstable and unsafe. The vicious circle of poverty and fear is perpetuated by narco-traffickers who advance money to farmers to buy seeds, then guarantee farm-gate purchase of their crop. Wheat, chillies or other legal crops would be just as easy to grow, but the dangers of getting them to market, paying bribes on the way and securing a buyer make them hazardous and unattractive alternatives. Building a strong police force won’t solve anything overnight – but it’s a significant step in the right direction.
Wright’s tour was fixed term, but Afghanistan gets under the skin. Will he stay I ask? “That depends very much on my family. I have a one year contract and I am now more than two thirds of the way through it. However I feel I have now reached a position where I have gained the trust of the local Afghan Police and the results I am achieving now are by far and away greater than in my first 6 months. Continuity and trust is vital in this policing environment.”

Doing time in Kabul

Zaraf Shan is a career policewoman, mother of six and the senior female officer at Kabul’s new Prison/Detention Centre. At 42 she is slim, attractive and well groomed; no hijab covers her glossy chestnut hair and in terms of both running a tight ship and presenting a modern image, she literally ‘wears the trousers’.

Any lingering fears that this relatively new jail will conjure up images of ‘Midnight Express’, or even Kabul’s own notorious Pul e Charkhi Prison (described as “a slaughterhouse” during the period of Russian occupation) are soon dispelled as Zaraf introduces us to what can only be described as a model detention centre.

The new facility was handed over by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), to the Afghan Ministry of Justice, in January 2008. As Zaraf show us around it seems that there are no ‘no-go’ areas; cell doors are open or ajar but still she knocks briefly before entering. The rooms are large, lined with bunk beds and bright soft furnishings; they are en suite, have televisions and as we speak to the women, young children play at their feet.

Zaraf’s own children provide a bond with the women many of whom hardly qualify as criminals by UK standards. Most are Afghan but 32-year-old Numthip is from Thailand. “You must speak to this sister,” urges Zaraf, putting a friendly arm around Numthip’s shoulders,” she speaks some English.” How are things here, I ask? “Much better than Bangkok I think!” grins Numthip.

Other women have been incarcerated for leaving their abusive husbands - one very elderly lady admits to murder. The 'victim' was her husband.

“Sister” is not a word usually used in Afghanistan about women who have fallen from grace, but we hear it again and again in the prison. After declining offers of tea from the inmates I return to Zaraf’s office where she starts to look at her watch; it is weekend and she wants to get home to her family.

Female prison guards in Kabul are drawn from the ranks of the ANP (Afghan National Police) in which Zaraf has served for 18 years. Her husband is also a police officer and she never wanted to be anything else. “From childhood” she repeats to make the point, “it was my dream. It is a very hard job for a woman, but my family support me and so I don’t feel the problems so much. I love police work and if you want to do something very much you never get tired of it.”

Trading her police uniform for a burqa during the Taliban era was the hardest thing she has ever done. “ I wasn’t sure if I would ever be a policewoman again; we were almost without hope. I will always remember after they left seeing thousands of people on the streets again. I thought, ‘What’s going on here?’ and I cried with happiness under my burqa.”

Today Zaraf is responsible for 15 staff managing security in the women’s prison, patrolling, looking after administrative issues and looking for ways to make things better. Four doctors are attached to the prison and the women have access to advice on birth control, female health, STDs and hygiene training.

She has lived through turbulent times; I wonder what her hopes are for her own daughters? She is emphatic: “I want her to be anything that she wants to be. I know how upset I would have been if I could not have been a policewoman. Freedom is the important thing.”

ENDS

Women of Courage

“Do not wait for leaders: do it alone, person to person. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” - Mother Teresa

Throughout its history Afghanistan has been defined by two things – men and war. The men have included politicians, religious leaders, foreigners and warlords: The wars have been waged by them, or on their behalf.

Today the country is still beleaguered, but for the first time women are in the front line of the fight to define its future. Some would argue that they always have been, but their contribution has been either invisible - or so far off the radar of international awareness that it has been unacknowledged.

Described variously as a failing or failed state Afghanistan is once again the focus of world attention; once again a battleground. Fundamentalism, poverty, internecine tribal rivalry, greed and the drug trade have taken their toll with painful familiarity. But something is changing - through the bravery, determination, compassion and political awakening of women. Some are elderly, some are very young; some are uneducated, others have university degrees and speak several languages; many are Moslem, some are Christian; not all have grown up in Afghanistan.
These are some of the people and places I visited, with photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind, in Kabul, Kandahar, Helmand and Samangan.

KABUL – FATIMA & ARIFA
There is edginess to the city today. A suicide bombing followed by a demonstration in the streets has made people nervous. We’ve been invited to Fatima Mohammadi’s curtain shop in Kabul but our driver is not keen to linger, or for us to be seen in the bazaar. Fatima is unconcerned however and keen to show off her products.

She is 38 but looks younger; soberly dressed and dignified. We first meet at the offices of MISFA – the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan – where Fatima explains how she qualified for the loan of 10,000 AFS (about £100) that enabled her to launch and develop the small business that changed her life.

Like many Afghan women whose lives were disrupted by war and exile, Fatima had little formal schooling. Married to Rostam, a metalworker, and mother of three children aged between nine and 19, she found it difficult to manage financially and give her children the things they needed.
“One day my neighbours told me about an organisation that provided loans to deserving families so I went along and applied for one. It made a significant difference to my life and I applied for a second loan, of 15,000AFS (£150).

“Business is flourishing. Each day I get more and more customers. Because of the extra cash my son is in school and able to complete 12th Grade; I have enrolled him in English and Computer classes. This is a big achievement for me.

“My husband too is very happy. He encouraged me to get the loans. We have all benefited.”
Life in Kabul is often brutally hard for ordinary people and even those with jobs have little left for luxuries. The daily realities of random bombings, loss of electricity, chaotic traffic and poor roads conspire to make even getting to work a major undertaking.

Fatima’s days start early with morning prayers. For six days a week she makes breakfast for her children and sees them off to school. She is in her shop by 7am and doesn’t leave until 7pm, but she has no complaints. The success of her small business has meant work for other women as well. “I have had eight trainees for a period of three months; now I have another one. It is good for everyone.”

At home Fatima’s 14-year-old daughter Zahara prepares the family’s evening meal. When we talk about her Fatima becomes emotional. She has hopes for her daughter that she never dared voice during the Taliban period but is passionate about them now: “I was unlucky because I never learned to read or write, but I have dreams for my daughter; I want her to be educated, to be a doctor.”

Sitting beside Fatima is 39-year-old Arifa, who has also turned her life around thanks to a MISFA loan. A mother of seven, she is married to a civil servant and works from home, producing exquisite embroidered goods that she sells to retailers. “All my children (aged between four and 17) are in school. It is hard to cope with constantly rising food prices and this is the only way I have been able to keep up. Before we had nothing but essentials – no TV even. Her face broadens into a smile: “Now we have TV and a washing machine.”

Both women have been matter-of-fact about describing their daily routines and upbeat about what the small MISFA loans have enabled them to do, but afterwards as we drink tea and chat with other women at the centre they become more animated and strident. They insist that security in the city is deteriorating day by day due to internal conflicts.

“I don’t care who these warring factions are, but it is because of their disunity and lack of a strong government that things are so,” says Arifa. ”We need the international community to bring peace and pressurise them into settling down and becoming reconciled.
“Women are the most severe victims of conflict. We try to be optimistic and hopeful of reconciliation, but until it comes I cannot concentrate on my work. Reconciliation is the real key to stability and peace.”

RAHINA
Rahina Samim would not look out of place on the Kings Road, with her stylishly cut dark hair, moderate display of bling and expertly applied make-up. Her head is uncovered and her manner is anything but subdued. She is 36 and single.

Rahina is an Afghan woman, but she has grown up in world light years away from the one that shaped the lives of those she now helps.

Programme Director of MISFA and a trained economist Rahina grew up in Switzerland. Today she looks after nearly 90 female entrepreneurs like Fatima and Arifa – assessing the suitability of candidates, then monitoring and mentoring their progress.
The process involves assessing the security of an area, negotiating with local ‘malekes’ (local elders) so that ventures selected are acceptable to the community, investigating markets and ensuring that money is not given to women whose husbands will squander it.
Help can take the form of cash advances or provision of seed, fertiliser, lambs or tools. Training is provided and Rahina takes care to point out that no interest or repayment is sought until enough time has passed for embryonic ventures to find their feet and show a return
An articulate woman, she speaks (in English) with passion and conviction about what Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) loans have done to change the lives of Afghan women – but she has no illusions about the problems.

“We are women and we work for women: what we do here is full of challenge, but when I see the results I am so happy! There is this woman I will tell you about – a woman who opened a bakery. Her husband is paralysed.

Smart, cosmopolitan and feisty, Rahina’s decision to return to Afghanistan was, she admits, traumatic. Her parents, both doctors, fled their homeland when she was eight and her image of Kabul was one plucked from her mother’s memory of another epoch. “She studied here, 40 years ago, and told me that Afghanistan was beautiful and that we had gardens, many intellectual people and poets. I came back and saw all this destruction and disaster and it was all very sad, you know – and depressing. I called my mother and I said ‘I don’t recognise this Afghanistan’ and she said that that was understandable because she had been away for so many years. She said “I can’t come back now because I know I would not survive the shock. I’ve seen it on television. I would rather live with my memories’.”

Rahina felt gloomy and negative as reality kicked in. “Ninety percent of Afghans are victims; you can get away with anything here” she says, recalling an earlier job at a Kabul bank where she was first bribed then menacingly ‘advised’ not to rock the boat by reporting the institutionalised corruption practised by her staff.

Today she shrugs off her bitterness, as so many Afghan women do: “I am a very positive person and I try always to keep my hopes. The day I lose my hopes I will not be alive. Also hope is part of our religion, Islam, you know.”

What some describe as Afghan complacency Rahina dismisses emphatically: “Yes, people look – lazy, is that the word?” ”Passive?” I volunteer. “Yes, yes – but they are actually very strong. They look around and say ‘God is great, God is here.’ When you understand what bad experiences they have had (30 years of conflict), and see they are still smiling, you think ‘How do they DO that!’! I think if I had been in this place during that time I would be crazy, in a psychiatric hospital, but they smile and say ‘Tomorrow is another day’.”

Again the conversation drifts away from the business of MISFA and into politics; to Afghanistan’s most controversial woman, suspended MP Malalai Joya. “She’s a very strong lady. These politic guys say she’s crazy, she’s not normal – because she tells the truth! She has lots of enemies, believe me.”

Rahina’s male colleague Sultan has met Joya: “Her message is everybody’s – we don’t want to see the faces of warlords in parliament; men who have committed war crimes and killed hundreds of innocent people. Again and again Joya stresses this point, so she faces huge critics. But oh my God, it is good that we have such strong women here!”

SHAFIQA, HALIMA & SAMIYA
There’s a story about the way business is done in Afghanistan that illustrates how complex life is there and why so many ‘western solutions’ simply don’t work. It’s related by a former British policeman, presently attached to Helmand Province’s Stabilisation Unit. Dave Wright is mentor to the emergent Afghanistan National Police and based in Lashkar Gah – a long way from the ANP’s administrative HQ in Kabul.

When I naively ask why so many routine documents have to be physically transported from the capital to local police offices, Dave laughs. He has already been down this road!
“I used to say, ‘Why don’t you email them?’. I was told ‘We have no computer’. And it continued. When the computers arrived there was no electricity, so even faxing was not an option.

A generator was purchased. Soon the fuel to run the generator ran out. Dust gathered on the computers (which well-meaning donors had provided with Roman keyboards, unfamiliar to the Pashtu-speaking Helmandi).

This is a country of paradoxes. Freedom of movement is fraught with difficulties and electricity, which brings light, warmth and the means to cook and communicate, is either erratic or non-existent. Yet mobile phones abound. The country’s infrastructure is shattered yet, like post-war Germany, it is has a unique opportunity to start afresh.

In Kabul a company committed to ‘Creating Electricity and Empowering Women’ is dedicated to doing just that. TZA ( Tolo-e Zanan-e Afghan), in partnership with the Department of Renewable Energy, gives women the chance to build on their engineering training, develop new skills and give the country something it desperately needs – reliable, cost-effective energy.
By harnessing the country’s wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectric resources, and acknowledging the untapped ‘power source’ that is Afghanistan’s women, engineers like Shafiqa, Halima and Samiya are enable to earn a living and transform the lives of ordinary families.

Their work involves importing and testing renewable energy products from all over the world, checking them for quality and reliability and assessing them in terms of value for money.
The three women have agreed to meet us to talk about their lives and work. Initially reserved they are introduced to us before our interpreter, Akmal, has arrived and in the way of curious women everywhere we communicate with smiles, sign language and the rituals of hospitality. In Afghanistan this is tea – black or green and usually served with sweets instead of sugar. When Akmal joins us we pile into a taxi to the small showroom on Kabul’s airport road, where the women work.

Modest and exquisitely polite, the women wear headscarves and bright, pretty clothes. Halima, 35, is a widow whose wage has to keep her and her three children. Shafiqa, 30, a blonde a mother of four, is the most extrovert. She radiates enthusiasm about her work and is keen to explain how, after finishing high school, she studied to learn all about renewable energy. “This field attracted me and I took an engineering qualification, because power is so important; everyone in the community needs it.”

After a bewildering introduction to the properties of photovoltic batteries, electrical power invertors and solar devices that can be adapted to run a variety of items from fans to radios we walk the short distance to the workshop where the three women and their colleagues test load controls, assemble solar lamps and check equipment.

A five volt panel that absorbs sunlight all day can power four light bulbs for an entire night enabling children to read and study. Isn’t cheap by Afghan standards (5,750 AFS/??) but it’s reliable and once purchased, attracts no further running costs.
A job at the solar project for Samiya, 25, means that one day she may be able to live with her children again.

Elegant and attractive, dark-haired Samiya was forced into marriage during the Taliban era by a man who spotted her in the bazaar. “One day he followed me home and told my parents ‘I want to marry your daughter’. He already had a wife and I didn’t want to marry him, but my parents were scared. He was an important man. Now I want to divorce him. I live with my parents but they have no room for my children and I cannot afford to rent anywhere.”

So seven-year-old Mustafa and 6-year-old Mujtaba now live in an orphanage in Kabul’s District 6 where Samiya visits whenever she can. We make a detour to see them; the unexpected interruption of lessons and arrival of their mother is a happy interlude.

Independence for these women comes at a price as Gul Rasool Hamdard explains. As Head of the Engineering Department (Renewable Energy) for Afghanistan he is keen that I take a message back.”Twelve women were trained for one year, in production of solar energy. It was a partnership with the Ministry. The scheme attracted good women and we could do more if we had the money. Our society desperately needs more power and this is a good investment – but we have no budget. Fifty dollars (US) funds one woman’s salary for a month. Please, tell people to help us.”

VICTORIA
Afghanistan will not meet any of the Millennium Development Goals set for it. These include a bid to reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality rate. Many births are not attended by skilled health professionals and many women suffer or die needlessly because of pregnancy related complications. If they can get to Kabul for treatment, they are lucky. If they can get to the Cure Hospital, and come under the care of Victoria Parsa, they are blessed!

Victoria, 27, a mother of three, has been married for 11 years and Head of Midwifery at Cure for less than one. He career started at the city’s Estafan Hospital but she aspired to higher standards than it then offered and transferred five years ago to Cure, originally known as Hope Hospital. There were just three doctors and two midwives. Recalling the early days of Cure’s ownership Victoria smiles: “There were a lot of changes; now when I go to a government hospital here I make comparisons between the professional standards. I wanted to become a midwife because I wanted to help mothers and babies. I read some books about maternal deaths; postpartum haemorrhage is a big problem. In Kabul now some NGOs are working to improve things, but in the provinces it is bad. There are no proper facilities for transport, few female doctors and lack of midwife care.”

Shortly before our visit Cure Hospital’s Medical Director, Dr Jacqui Hill moved on leaving not just a temporary skills gap but an ache in many hearts. Victoria’s is one. Even talking about ‘Dr Jacqui’ is difficult for her. “She was a good teacher and special for me. When I came to Cure Hospital there was no ob/gyn doctor, then she came. In my opinion she was the foundation of ob/gyn excellence here. There is no-one like Dr Jacqui: I worked with her, she was a very kind, a good teacher, trainer and good friend to everybody.”

Tears and emotion momentarily halt our conversation. Victoria is gentleness personified, but a tenacious self-improver who juggles domestic and professional demands with commitment to developing PowerPoint, Excel and presentation skills.

Victoria’s journey to work takes her past the ruins of the Palace of Zahir Shah; it’s still imposing structure a ghostly reminder of the city’s once impressive architecture. Dust, neglect – and allegedly itinerant drug addicts - may have reclaimed this shell of the past, but across the road another structure rises; the campus of the new American University.

Victoria’s focus is not on history though, only the daily demands of her job and family. She rises at 4.30am and is in work for 7am. “I like to be on time,” she says, admitting that her recent promotion has brought challenges. Home life for she and husband Gullamnabi, a laboratory technician whom she met as a student, is also busy. “I don’t think about being tired, here there are the mothers and babies who need me here and at home my own children. There is not much time to sit and talk with my husband and always paperwork for tomorrow! Maybe 5 minutes to watch TV.”

Pioneering treatment of fistulas, ob/gyn training for GPs and development of an excellent midwifery department is something Cure Hospital is justifiably proud of, but culturally there are is still a way to go. Victoria takes us to see Musuna, 27, who has just given birth to quads by C-section. All will live although two of the tiny babies are still in incubators. She is anaemic and needed a blood transfusion the previous evening. How will she cope, I ask, knowing how poor the family are. “She already has three children” Victoria tells me, “so now one boy and six girls.”
The following evening we dine with Victoria’s family who are a further revelation. Close knit, warm, hospitable and generous they represent values that are rarely found in the UK.

FARZANA
It’s the end of a busy day. Dr Farzana Wali Gibran is clearly tired and ready to leave for her transport home. She is also gracious and patient – generous with her very precious ‘free’ time.
Farzana, 36, has been practising for 15 years. Recently she completed a one year ob/gyn Fellowship Training Programme at Cure Hospital of which she speaks glowingly. Like everyone at this special place she is dedicated and loyal; married to a doctor and with four children between four and 13, she has a lot to be happy about. But like many Afghan women, her ability to pursue a fulfilling career as well as run a home, is due in part to her husband.

“My husband is a good friend – always he is supporting me, he looks after things at home so I can work at the hospital. My three children are also very helpful; they look after the small one and I am really grateful. I’m really busy, all the time. I have no time to listen to the news or watch TV, but he helps me and so do my children.” As she talks about her family Farzana smiles and laughs at the picture of herself as a multi-tasked whirling dervish.

“I suffered a lot to become a doctor. Towards the end of my training the security, day by day, became worse and worse. Rockets rained down on Kabul. Sometimes the doors of the hospital were closed, but I was committed to my work and always my husband encouraged me to continue.” Because of the instability Farzana’s training took longer; she was fearful but never left her country. “We tried to help all the poor ladies and I will never forget the night duties interrupted by explosions launched by the Americans against the Taliban. The conditions were not good emotionally!”

During this period she had to ‘dress modestly’ like other women – but weighed against the wider problems it was not onerous. “The first thing we worried about was security; the second was education of the children. We could deal with the burqa she laughed! God spared my husband, which is the most important thing. He spent four years of his life as a soldier; 62 young boys from his area were taken; only two came home, my husband and his friend and his friend had lost a hand. One day it was my husband’s turn to travel in a helicopter but a friend who had never flown asked to take his place. After the aircraft took off it was blown up by a rocket and everyone on board killed. “So, I think God spared my husband to be a doctor.” For both of them, it is a vocation.

Being accepted on the intensive Fellowship course at Cure Hospital helped Farzana fill the gaps in her training. “I have worked hard because we represent hope for people; now as a trainer I want to transfer my skills and my knowledge to my students.

“My own children are very smart and intelligent, although my youngest has development problems; I want them all to have a better childhood than me, I don’t want them to suffer what I suffered. I want them to have the same opportunities as children educated in America or London. That is my hope.”

PAKTYA - MAHERA
Just days before I meet Mahera news of two Taliban executions has broken in Ghazni, adjacent to her home province of Paktya. Two burqa-clad women, believed to be involved in providing sexual favours to American servicemen, have been shot in the head. Graphic pictures taken immediately before and after the killings are posted on the internet, a stark reminder that summary ‘justice’ can still be meted out with impunity

At 50 Mahera is an unlikely activist; she has a long memory and recalls the periods of Russian and then Taliban rule as ‘dark times’ for all Afghans, not just women. “But the Taliban turned back time,” she says, “before they came, women were free.” Like many she had high hopes of the Kharzai government; like many she is now disillusioned. “We were happy to have democracy, but unfortunately it has not happened.”

Mahera describes her family as ‘modern, professional and enlightened’. Middle class, middle-aged and educated she is married to a doctor and enjoys a more comfortable life than many Afghan women. She doesn’t need to put her head above the parapet; but she does.
“I have many projects that I plan daily, weekly and monthly; they include literacy classes and accelerated learning programs for women.” Travelling around her province she works to establish women’s shuras (consultative councils) in each village and encourage dialogue with their male counterparts.

In practical terms this encourages women to challenge decisions previously made and actioned only by men. Feuds between families, often resulting in violence and solved by arranging a marriage, are common. “By organising themselves, and having a voice women, are able to say ‘It is not fair to give a young innocent girl to an old man’. Meetings with larger shuras got endorsement but often there were problems with the men.”

Centuries of cultural conditioning endorsed by a regime that effectively airbrushed women out of any public debate did not yield easily and Mahera had enemies. “It was hard, but we persevered,” she said.

Fear of retribution does not appear to be an issue for this determined mother of six whose pride in her own children’s professional achievements is considerable. “”My daughter will carry on my work, whether I live or die,” she tells me. “It is important, and my message to women in the UK is please help and support us. Women have no influence here. I’m happy that ISAF and NATO forces are in our country – if they leave the Taliban will come back and things will be really bad, but I wish they would be more sensitive about our culture.

ZARAF
Zaraf Shan is a career policewoman; she’s also a mother of six and the senior female officer at Kabul’s new Prison/Detention Centre. At 42 she is slim, attractive and well groomed; no hijab covers her glossy chestnut hair and in terms of both running a tight ship and presenting a modern image, she literally ‘wears the trousers’.

Zaraf joins us as we chat to the prison’s director, Brigadier Zahir Hamidi, who is explaining why we can’t photograph the female prisoners or their accommodation.
Any lingering fears that this relatively new jail will conjure up images of ‘Midnight Express’, or even Kabul’s own notorious Pul e Charkhi Prison (described as “a slaughterhouse” during the period of Russian occupation) are soon dispelled as Zaraf introduces us to what can only be described as a model detention centre.

The new facility was handed over by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), to the Afghan Ministry of Justice, in January. Generous funding from Italy was clearly well spent and as well as cells the prison was equipped with furniture, sewing machines, kitchen and catering equipment.

As Zaraf show us around it seems that there are no ‘no-go’ areas; cell doors are open or ajar but still she knocks briefly before entering. The rooms are large, lined with bunk beds and bright soft furnishings; they are en suite, have televisions and as we speak to the women, young children play at their feet.

Zaraf’s own children – three boys, three girls – provide a bond with the women many of whom hardly qualify as criminals by UK standards. Most are Afghan but 32-year-old Numthip is from Thailand. “You must speak to this sister,” urges Zaraf, putting a friendly arm around Numthip’s shoulders,” she speaks some English.” How are things here, I ask? “Much better than Bangkok I think!” grins Numthip.

“Sister” is not a word usually used in Afghanistan about women who have fallen from grace, but we hear it again and again in the prison. After declining offers of tea from the inmates I return to Zaraf’s office where she starts to look at her watch; it is weekend and she wants to get home to her family.
Female prison guards in Kabul are drawn from the ranks of the ANP (Afghan National Police) in which Zaraf has served for 18 years. Her husband is also a police officer and she never wanted to be anything else. “From childhood” she repeats to make the point, “it was my dream. It is a very hard job for a woman, but my family support me and so I don’t feel the problems so much. I love police work and if you want to do something very much you never get tired of it.”

Trading her police uniform for a burqa during the Taliban era was hard for her. “I wasn’t sure if I would ever be a policewoman again; we were almost without hope. I will always remember after they left seeing thousands of people on the streets again. I thought, ‘What’s going on here?’ and I cried with happiness under my burqa.”

Today Zaraf is responsible for 15 staff managing security in the women’s prison, patrolling, looking after administrative issues and looking for ways to make things better. Four doctors are attached to the prison and the women have access to advice on birth control, female health, STDs and hygiene training.

Another swift look at her wristwatch reminds me that we are trespassing on Zaraf’s precious family time. She has lived through turbulent times; I wonder what her hopes are for her own daughters?
She is emphatic: “I want her to be anything that she wants to be. I know how upset I would have been if I could not have been a policewoman. Freedom is the important thing.”


SAMANGAN - KHADIJA
We are late. The long and rather fraught seven-hour drive from Kabul, at breakneck speed, has left little time to eat, get our bearings or exchange more than the basic courtesies with our hosts at Afghanaid’s compound in Aybak. From there we make a further short journey, to meet the woman who I first heard about in London, weeks earlier.

She is 31-year Khadija Haideri; poet, mother and teacher – a woman who married for love and left her home in Mazur-e-Sharif to run a child peer group in Samangan province. The tiny village of Hazrat-e-Sultan, where Khadija and her girls wait for us, bakes in the afternoon heat. We are hot and rumpled; Khadija looks cool and elegant.

Nothing stirs in this arid place where the sky goes on forever and the mountains stand like sentinels in the distance. Khadija’s’ classroom’ is reached via a gateway in a mud-walled enclosure where a sign acknowledges the support of Comic Relief. As we approach there is a flurry of activity; 16 brightly dressed girls rise to their feet; I am given paper flowers, tea and a seat at the front of the group.

On a silent cue the young voices combine to sing an earnest song. I don’t understand the words, but the delivery is faultless, the refrain emphatic and the message clearly serious. It is a song about their hopes, for themselves and their country, for a brighter future.
As the ubiquitous chai sabz or saih (tea, green or black) is served Kahdija invites me to talk to the girls. Several want to become doctors or teachers, midwives; one wants to be a judge – another, quietly announces that she intends to become president. There is much laughter, but it is not the sceptical kind. Halmina believes that this dream is within her reach, which speaks volumes about what the peer group project has achieved.

The group meets three times week; those attending receive an education, instruction in handicrafts, children’s rights, women’s rights and business. Khadija nods, showing me their bank book with everyone’s name in it. “They are saving as a group; they want to invest in a shop where they can sell their own products.”

Afghanaid draws up guidelines, co-ordinates, monitors progress, evaluates and reports; 95 % of its staff are Afghan and it works with the National Solidarity Programme. Funding, however, comes from other sources and in Samangan alone is spread over 195 projects related to water provision, training for women, carpet weaving, tailoring, establishment of kitchen gardens and agriculture.

Competition for funding is keen and people like Khadija are key to delivery. She is a woman of rare value however as I discover when I meet her husband, who runs the parallel boys peer group, and their children Pakiza, 7, and four-year-old Parniyan.
The couple, who come from different ethnic backgrounds (Tazik and Pashtun), married during the Taliban period when music and dancing was forbidden. “I was very sad about that “says Khadira. Her quiet dignity belies a great strength and like many Afghan women she is passionate about the value of education. “When I was a student we studied under bombings; it was difficult but I persevered. My message to other women is to take courage and fight for themselves. They cannot wait for others to do things for them.”

She and Shefiqa work six days a week; officially from 7am to 4.30pm but Khadija later reveals that she runs classes at home for those unable to attend during the day. School, for some poor families, is a luxury they cannot afford.

There is an obvious rapport between husband and wife and a shared pride in their own children who are obviously bright; Pakira, who is in Grade Three at school, coaches children from Grades Two to Four in the evening, alongside her mother.

The couple met when Shefiqa was working as a photographer. “We already had family connections but then I noticed that he kept taking my photograph,” she said with a smile. Both are committed to crafting a better future for Afghanistan. Shefiqa worked as a journalist before they came to Aybak and completed a short BBC-sponsored training course in Afghanistan. Khadija graduated with a BA and became a teacher and published poet, but hopes her daughters will “go further”. “I had many obstacles when I was young and although we can’t predict the future I hope that things will get better in this country so that their dreams can come true.”

Her poems - the four line ‘rubay’ verse form, published in Dari under the title ‘Appearance and Words’ - reflect this. When she had children herself she became even more aware of how great the need for education was, describing it as the “key to everything”. So whose decision was it to leave their home in Mazur-e-Sharif and commit to teaching the next generation in Aybak? “A joint one” they say, in unison.

NAJIBA
Najiba laughs as she shakes the almond tree; dappled with sunlight she is a picture of happiness. Her small son Mehran mimics her mirth as he dodges the falling nuts and leaves. This garden, invisible from outside the dried mud walls of the compound that contains it, is idyllic.
It is also a thriving commercial enterprise that owes its existence, in part, to Afghanaid, a charity that has been active in the country for more than 25 years. Najiba’s garden is in the village of Q’Mazar Bala in Samangan province, around 250 kilometres North West of Kabul. The province is conservative and women routinely wear the burqa outside their homes.

Five years ago a study revealed that Samangan had one of the lowest levels of access to safe drinking water in Afghanistan and 62 per cent of households suffered health problems related to poor diet. In some areas children spend their entire day walking to a water source and returning home with it.

Poverty and malnourishment go hand in hand but projects sponsored by the EC, Afghanaid and the National Solidarity Programme have achieved much towards combating it. Projects targeted specifically at women have had singular success.

We travel along arid, dusty roads to a village that from a distance, and to western eyes, looks primitive and uninhabited. Dwellings made of dried mud hug the earth closely beneath the blinding sun. Accompanied by Afghanaid’s Women’s Co-ordinator in the Aybak area, Khori Gul, we prepare to see an example of how female empowerment is bearing fruit.
The home that 28-year-old Najiba shares with her husband Zainuddin and three children, contains a 12,000 square meter garden that has quite literally ’borne fruit’ – in abundance and in an idyllic setting.

Najiba’s garden is a breathtaking testament to what can be done with advice, provision of quality seed and cookery lessons.

Petite, curious and initially shy Najiba becomes animated as she warms to her subject. “This is the first year of the seed programme. I grow lettuces, radishes, onions, tomatoes, leeks, and squash – all sorts of things. I’m very, very pleased! There is so much – already I have sold some vegetables and given some away to my neighbours. And I’ve learned how to make new dishes - cooked and raw food - and how to pickle and preserve things.

“In winter it s very, very cold. There’s lots of snow and rain; it’s very hard here, hard to move around."

Najiba’s husband is unable to work but clearly takes pride in what he and his wife have achieved in their garden, a plot that reveals an abundance hard to imagine from outside the high walls that enclose it. Through the square vegetable garden and behind the main house Najiba leads us across a stream to an orchard where grapes, almonds and peaches grow. Another area extends beyond for further cultivation.

As ‘sisters’ communication is so tactile and intuitive that it is easy to forget how conservative this area is until Khori Gul explains that Najiba would like us to eat, take tea and meet some of the young women who have learned sewing and carpet weaving skills in her Aladdin’s Cave of a house. This poses a problem because Amin, our interpreter, is male and not welcome in ‘the women’s room’. I want to speak to the two teenagers who have crafted the intricately embroidered dresses and waistcoats hanging on the walls. A compromise is reached: Amin cannot come in, but he can stand outside the open window . Perching on the sill, he continues to translate for me.

Parwan, 19,and Rojan, 16, are the seamstresses who have made the glittering waistcoat and hat that will be worn by a young boy at a family ceremony. It took three days to make; the materials cost 300AFS and it will sell in the bazaar for 800AFS, turning a profit of 500AFS. Afghanaid provided the training, trainer and raw materials in consultation with the local community that decides what products are needed. “Before it took one week to make a handkerchief that sold for 50AFs,” says Najiba.

Twenty women did the training course; each trainee passed on skills to two others. It’s a slow process, but this is an area where change does not come quickly and all progress is significant.

HELMAND - FATIMA
When Fatima found out that her husband had decided to take a 14-year-old bride she was not happy. In fact she was livid. “ I tore my clothes and cried; she was an orphan with just one sister, and he didn’t even tell me! Now we fight all the time.”

It’s hard to imagine Fatima distraught; warm, extrovert and irrepressible she displays none of the reserve that characterises most women at Lashkar Gah women’s centre. Her eyes sparkle with mischief, her hands are everywhere – touching clothes and hair, patting the settee and pulling me over to sit beside her. “Now, I will tell you my story,” she says without bidding. “It is good and it is bad. I expect you will wonder how I survive!” This announcement is delivered with laughter, enthusiasm and not a trace of self-pity.

Earlier in the week Fatima had featured as an inaugural member of the town’s first Women and Children’s Justice Group attended by PRT (Provisional Reconstruction Team) Justice Advisor, Fraser Hirst. A mover and shaker in her own town of Gereshk, she nodded enthusiastically as he gently led the more reserved ladies through the process of selecting a leader, suggesting what qualities they should look for and how a deputy might also be elected if more than one obvious candidate was proposed.

Fatima was not a candidate for office; she is already committed to a women’s shura in her home town where she is principal of the local school. But her experience and confidence do much to move things along in a process utterly alien to many of the members.

When we catch up with each other again Fatima is waiting for a car to take her back to Gereshk. Travel is fraught with difficulty in Helmand and without transport and a driver she would be unable to attend the Lashkar Gah meetings. Determined to make the most of our time she seizes me with the compulsion of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner to tell her tale.

“I have six children; four boys and two girls. That is quite enough! I am educated; I finished 12th Grade and became a teacher. When I had just two children my husband took a second wife who gave him five children.”

This arrangement seemed to work and the family lived together in relative harmony until the surprise third wife was introduced. The three women get on well: “I do not fight with them, but with him!” she insists, adding matter-of-factly that he beats her “like an animal”.

“I earn money, I have a good job – but I have to give it all to my husband.”

We touch on the subject of divorce and Fatima laughs.”Oh no, no ; it is not our custom. But it is good to say this to you; women here never talk about these things.” It occurs to me that while Fatima’s story sound grim, it has done nothing to dampen her spirits, any more than the death threats she receives for raising the profile of women in the province.