Pax Populi's Selina Whiteley Tutoring Afghans from Toulouse France

Editor’s note: Selina Whiteley is a British national who graduated with a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.  Northern Ireland is one of the model countries that in the last decade or so has managed to overcome centuries of sectarian violence and hatred and to establish reconciliation and peace within its borders.  Selina combines her skills as a peacemaker with her extensive experience as an English as a Second Language teacher.  She embodies the skills and spirit that make her just right for our Pax Populi English Tutoring program. We are very grateful to have Selina’s participation in our initiative. In the following essay, Selina shares her thoughts on Pax Populi and her work as a tutor with two Afghan boys, one age 9 and the other 11, who are both students at a school in Kabul with which Pax Populi has recently begun partnering.

“Accommodation can only come through dialogue…Building peace requires a continuous and ongoing effort to build relationships, to dialogue, to outreach, to go the extra mile for peace…The Peace Process moved us from the tragedy of conflict to an era of dialogue, negotiation and a new political dispensation.”

These are the words of Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuiness, once, allegedly, the Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Republican Army. The majority in Northern Ireland concur: peace only comes through intercultural dialogue.

With MediationNorthernIreland, I worked on the District Policing Partnerships, aiming to resolve the distrust the Catholic community felt toward the former Royal Ulster Constabulary, the northern Ireland police force that had violated human rights and even colluded with Loyalists in the killing of Catholic civilians. The mediative dialogues helped the most impoverished communities in Northern Ireland to emerge from a form of community policing linked to paramilitary organizations. These District Policing Partnerships, trailed between 2006 – 2009 have been accredited with inspiring Sinn Féin MLA Alex Maskey to agree to the devolution of policing powers.

Other organizations in Northern Ireland, such as the Peace People, have shown that when we empathize with people and accept that there can be reciprocal learning, we can build the most fantastic and durable of friendships. Much of the work I have done with AIDS charities too has shown me that those who can be so unjustly treated as pariahs, have as much, often more to offer than the socially accepted.

I am infinitely proud of my city of residence, Toulouse. In the aftermath of a shooting spree by a violent Islamist extremist, France reached out to all Muslims and the vast majority reciprocated. It might not be too much of an exaggeration to say this is a city more dedicated to peace and to the French values of “libertie, egalitie, fraternitie” because of what was suffered. This could be the future of many other cities and that undoubtedly includes Kabul. Yet today, those who fail to see its abundant potential treat Afghanistan with suspicion and even contempt.

However, intercultural dialogue does not work in isolation. In Northern Ireland, where I spent all my adult life, there was conflict that stretched back for generations between our Protestant and Catholic forefathers. My compatriot, the Nobel Laureate, John Hume, explained that higher levels of education allowed Catholics to take a bigger role in the administration of the state, and in doing so, they became stake-holders. Slowly, better education also led to the consolidation of Civil Rights, and with greater affluence people also came to fear that escalating violence could potentially destroy more financially secure futures

The parallels between Afghanistan and Northern Ireland are manifold, but just as Northern Ireland’s Mourne Mountains are dwarfed in comparison to Afghanistan’s Spinghar, Kamir and Karakoram Range, so too are the impediments to peace in Afghanistan far larger than those of Northern Ireland. However, as Dr. Robert E. McNulty has stated, Afghans have the same need for higher-levels of education and economic development as the rest of the human community. Nothing supersedes the importance of education in being able to secure social justice.

Even in war torn Syria, where, whilst the infrastructure remains intact, there have been triple the number of killed in the 2011-2012 period, students of Damascus University celebrate the chance of learning English. A postgraduate explained, “I think here in Syria and in any country around the world having an education is an asset for every person but the differences between developed countries and developing countries is the scientific, administrative and social infrastructure which will determine the importance of education. You should put the educated in an administrative position to help in rebuilding and reshaping of infrastructure and not let the general ambiance affect on their performance and behaviour. No one can ignore nowadays the widespread importance of English.” Yet to install these qualified persons, an access to education is imperative.

I am, at present, actively participating in a project to allow the youth of Villa Fátima, one of the most impoverished barrios in Buenos Aries, Argentina, to achieve a university education. Argentina’s past, like Afghanistan’s, is filled with human rights violations but such violations are not Argentina’s present. They do not have to be Afghanistan’s future. Volunteering for a Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Foundation Cameroon project to create a nursery school dedicated to the promotion of peace and human rights, my belief that even the youngest children can be nurtured in the values of peace has been reinforced. My youngest student, at nine, like many children of his age, is inquisitive concerning other cultures and embraces our intercultural dialogue, describing Afghanistan and listening intently to descriptions of France. Afghans deserve the same chance of a peaceful future and that is what Pax Populi’s Tutoring program allows.

Selina's students working from their school in Kabul

I am an accredited Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) tutor with experience teaching English to French BAC students, asylum seekers and, via Skype with impoverished students in Madagascar, a land of increasing violence, and Honduras, another nation that has transcended a legacy of conflict. I wanted to use my skills to benefit the Afghan people and, now, through the Pax Populi English Tutoring program I am able to do so. That is one of the greatest honors available to me.

Pax Populi is essential in helping Afghans to develop self-governance. Earlier in my career, when helping MedIRAQ to establish a hospital in Kirkuk in 2003, I saw how otherwise superbly qualified doctors, who lacked the English proficiency to deal with foreigners, could not deliver a satisfactory health system. They needed an English program such as that provided through Pax Populi.

According to the lecturers, the English Literature program at Al Aqsa University in Gaza has over many decades helped to lessen Gaza’s sense of isolation and to teach Gazans about English culture even as conditions have progressively worsened. Pax Populi is, by tutoring Afghans via Skype, helping to overcome the paralyzing sense of isolation felt by many Afghans, and to give them a sense of optimism as they endure the heartache of war. It also gives them the tools to facilitate intercultural dialogues, even long distance friendships.

My oldest student is just 11-years-old yet his dedication to learning English evidences an almost adult studiousness and maturity. The following are some of the words he wrote: “We need to make large steps and help our society to have a better world. We will need literacy. We will need to improve schools to become good students and better help illiterate peoples. We need to help the people who are not in that state which we are. We need to have brotherhood and not to fight with one another.” That is what Pax Populi is helping to achieve.

One of our most exciting people-to-people peacemaking initiatives is the Pax Populi English Tutoring program in which fluent English speakers engage in conversational English classes with Afghan students via Skype and other electronic media. (This was discussed in the June 2011 post.) To extend this program to new students, we are now looking for additional well qualified tutors who are dedicated to advancing peace through education.

A Pax Populi English Tutor with his Afghan learner during a tutoring session.

A retrospective of Applied Ethics/Pax Populi work in 2011 has been posted at the following link.

A few months ago I wrote about the Pax Populi effort to bring a young Afghan woman named Hila to study at Marblehead High School, in Massachusetts. Everything seemed poised for success, and there is no doubt whatsoever that we should have succeeded. However, due to the unfortunate decision of one embassy staffer, our applicant was not given the required visa. We are very aware of the criteria used in evaluating the merits of a visa application, and this case should have been a complete slam-dunk. We have no doubt that the visa decision was in error and we sought to reverse it by reaching out to the offices of two senators and one congressman. All three officials sent letters to the embassy to communicate their support, and likewise letters of support were transmitted on behalf of the host family, the principal of the Marblehead High School, and the executive director of Applied Ethics. Sadly, a second time the visa was also not conferred.

Eventually, it was agreed that we needed to accept that Hila was not going to study in Marblehead High School in the current academic year, and maybe ever. This was a saddening and frustrating outcome, but one that we were forced to accept. Our goal is to help the Afghans to bring peace to their own country and we do this above all by trying to empower the Afghans through education. However, although not every struggle will succeed, we must not lose faith in the truth of our work. Our great struggle is to see peace prevail in Afghanistan and elsewhere. We are disappointed by this setback, but our work goes on. Hila has continued to participate in the Pax Populi English Tutoring program, which remains one of our most important initiatives. She is a brilliant young woman and we have no doubt she will go on to accomplish great things. Her goal to advance her education has not been altered and neither has our goal of working toward peace in Afghanistan. We have no doubt as to the value of our work, and so, despite the disappointment, our commitment to our cause is undiminished. The struggle continues.

Pax!

Speaking at a Girl's School in Bamiyan

1. Provide funds: no amount is too small or too large. School tuition in the public school is approximately $9,000 for non-residents. The tuition cannot be waived. There are also additional costs such as airfare, health insurance, living expenses. We rarely ask for money, but this is one time when we need it. Please give.

2. Spread the word. Many hands make for light work. We still need $15,000. That could be 1,000 donations for $15 or 150 donations for $100. Let’s build our community of together get the work done.

We hear a lot about the need to help Afghan women. Our goal is to be of service to all Afghans, but we also agree that the women of Afghanistan need an extra hand. Consider these most recent statistics: only 12.6 percent of women are literate v. 43.1 percent for males. The average number of years of schooling for males is 11 but only 7 for females. Moreover, as reported in our previous post, according to study that came out in June, Afghanistan is considered the most dangerous country in the world for women.

To donate please send a check to Applied Ethics Inc., 46 Chestnut St., Marblehead, MA 01945 or go to at www.paxpopuli.org/donate or by. Applied Ethics Inc. is a 501(c)(3) federally recognized tax-exempt charity. Donations are tax deductible for U.S. taxpayers.

Thank you. Pax!

Along with many analysts, we at Pax Populi believe that in Afghanistan the best things we can do to advance peace is to support the advancement of civil society through education, economic development, and human rights. Acting on that belief, we are seeking to bring another student to study in the United States, Hila, who is from eastern Afghanistan. If we can obtain the needed support, she will enter as a junior in high school. Last year we at Pax Populi brought our first student, Shogofa, to study at Salem State University. Shogofa came here not only to learn, but also to help teach people here about conditions in her country, and for that reasons, she gave several speeches and held talks at the Rotary Club, the Marblehead Educators Professional Development Day, a university conference on women’s rights, and in public schools. We are very proud of Shogofa and feel we have benefited greatly from her educational contributions to us.

Hila (third from left), together with Bob McNulty, Ted Achilles (head of SOLA, third from right), and oothers from SOLA in Kabul.

Hila visited the US during the summer of 2010 for medical treatment of her left eye. She stayed in the home of Jim and Cindy Haskins in North Carolina. Let me quote from Jim’s letter about Hila:

“In six weeks Hila taught me lessons I will never forget. She demonstrated a desire for learning that was endless…. We had the opportunity to take her to Washington, D.C. where we toured the Jefferson Memorial… I watched this Afghan girl trying to grasp some very foreign concepts. She turned to my wife and me and said, ‘I want to know more about this man.’ Later in her stay, I asked her to be careful because Afghanistan might not be ready for these ideas. Her response was, ‘Neither was America’.”

Before undertaking this effort to bring Hila to MHS, I met with the school’s principal, Mr. Kenneth Weinstein and other town educators. In his Commencement Address and in his newsletter to parents, Principal Weinstein’s support has been extremely heartening. In the newsletter he wrote the following:

I strongly support this effort as it delivers on our mission to develop global awareness among our students. Moreover, I see this as an opportunity to assist the next generation of Afghan leaders. We are working with the Pax Populi Educational Outreach program of the Marblehead-based nonprofit organization, Applied Ethics, Inc. to bring Hila to enter as a junior. As a foreign student, her tuition will be about $9,000 for the year in addition to which are transportation, insurance, and living costs. Applied Ethics is looking to the Marblehead community to find two host families each for six months, as well as the funds to cover the program costs.

I traveled to Afghanistan because I wanted to meet Hila and judge for myself whether she had the qualification to succeed in our school. I can say with complete confidence that I was deeply impressed with Hila. On every level, she exceeded my expectations. Her English was surprisingly good for a non-native speaker. She is clearly a highly intelligent and motivated young woman. And yet, despite the hardships she and her family has had to endure, she has a sweetness and sense of humor that led me to see her as becoming an esteemed member of the Marblehead community not only as a student, but as a person. I believe that she has tremendous potential to be a leader in her society. And because I believe this, I see our efforts on her behalf to be one that will contribute to the long term peace and stability of Afghanistan. In helping Hila, I believe we will be helping both Afghanistan and ourselves.

Can helping one Afghan girl can lead to peace in Afghanistan? In an important sense, the answer is “yes.” In World War II, my uncle gave his life in the fight against the Nazis, and my father was among the occupying troops in Japan after their surrender. We have been at peace with German and Japan ever since. Did my uncle and father bring peace to these countries? In as much as they contributed to a process that led to peace, the answer is “yes.” Pax Populi is our invitation to you to be part of the process of advancing peace on a personal level. Our small nongovernmental organization can’t do itself, nor do we want to do it ourselves. Pax Populi is true to its mission only if we have strong public participation. One family has already stepped forward to host Hila, but since she will be at MHS for two years, we need more families. We need to raise the money quickly to make this happen. Please consider donating online by clicking here or by sending a check to Applied Ethics, Inc., 46 Chestnut Street, Marblehead, MA 01945. Applied Ethics, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) federally recognized tax-exempt charity. Donations are tax deductible for US taxpayers.

It may seem like a small step on a long journey, but every step is important and needed if we are to achieve our goal of helping to create a lasting peace in Afghanistan. Together, I’m sure we can make a difference.

Pax!

The Pax Populi English Tutoring (PET) program, is the first initiative out of “Pax Labs.” In a word, for the last academic year, we have been working with tutors in the United States and Korea to help students in Afghanistan to learn English via Skype.

Background

Afghan Student during a Pax Populi Tutoring Session

In addition to these two organizations, another crucial element in establishing the program was bringing on Mr. Jeffrey Jorge as the PET program coordinator. Jeff is a University of Pennsylvania graduate and a highly skilled English as a Second Language (ESL) based in Seoul, South Korea. As anyone familiar with South Korea can attest, this country is probably one of the best and most demanding places to be an ESL teacher due to the intense thirst for education among Koreans as well as a nationwide zeal to learn English. Jeff’s experience as an ESL teacher has been a great asset to the program’s development.

We launched the PET program in September 2010 with five Bentley students and Jeff Jorge serving not only as the coordinator, but as a tutor as well. Given the difference in time zones, it was a little tricky getting the logistics right. In most cases, Bentley students would hold their tutoring sessions between 10:30 PM and 9:00 AM. Tutors typically hold one-on-one tutoring sessions that last one to two hours each. The Afghan students are given reading and/or writing assignments prior to the session and then spend their session communicating with each other online. If the internet connections are good, the sessions will be conducted with Skype video calls. If the connections are poor, the session will use audio only, and in some cases, when internet connections are particularly poor, the sessions will be conducted using instant-messaging or email. In most cases, the tutors and students are matched by gender. Our tutors reported seeing significant progress in their students over the course of a semester.

Is This Peacemaking?

PET is certainly a form of peacemaking because not only Americans helping Afghans to advance their education, which is crucial for helping Afghanistan to grow and stabilize itself, both tutors and students are learning about each other culture and developing an authentic understanding about each other and heartfelt concern for the other. PET is helping to forge bridges of understanding and friendship where before the was much ignorance and suspicion.

Making progress

Screen Shot of Afghan Student, Tutor, and Electronic Text during a Pax Populi English Tutoring session

The feedback from the participants has been overwhelmingly positive from both the American tutors and their Afghan students. Not only have the Afghans praised their tutors for all they learned, but several of the tutors said they got more out of the experience than they could ever give as a teacher. Several said that had formed friendships that they expected would continue into the future.

No longer a Pilot Project, but Still in Pax Labs

We learned a lot during the nine-month pilot program. We are now ready to share this news with the public and remove the “pilot project” designator, although we still consider the program to be in “beta” and a Pax Labs project. We will continue working on developing PET in many ways.
We want to take this opportunity to thank the Bentley University the Service-Learning Center and the School of Leadership, Afghanistan for supporting us during the first year of this pilot project. Thanks to their participation, we have made considerable progress. We look forward to continuing to advance this work in the months and years ahead.

For more information on this, please see the following link for an article that appeared in Bostinnovation.com: http://bit.ly/if4kWq. Be sure to take a look at the video that appears at the end.

We are pleased to announce that on May 10, 2011 the US Patent and Trademark Office gave official trademark rights for the name Pax Populi to Applied Ethics, Inc.

Ted Achilles receives Pax Populi Peacemaker Award at Abbot Hall, Marblehead, MA, April 30, 2011.

According to SOLA’s website, their organizational goal is to prepare the very best Afghan students for study in the U.S. and elsewhere so that they may return home to become future leaders of Afghanistan. To this end, SOLA has partnered with Pax Populi in both its Pax Populi Educational Outreach program through which Shogofa came to study at Salem State University beginning in September 2010 and in the Pax Populi English Tutoring program, in which English language tutors in various locations have provided language training to SOLA students in the context of developing deeper intercultural understanding, respect, and friendship.

Ted Achilles arrived in Afghanistan on February 14, 2003 and began a for-profit, freight forwarding company that he turned over to two Afghan brothers in December 2007. From May 2004 to June 2008 he was the Country Director of American Councils for International Education for the YES (Youth Exchange and Study) program. Then, in 2008, Ted founded SOLA. Participants in programs managed by Ted have gone on to study at Bard, Bates, Beloit, Bennington, Colorado, Cornell, Holy Cross, Houston Honors, Meredith, Middlebury, Mt. Holyoke, Nagoya, Richmond, Salem State, St. Lawrence, Sweet Briar, Tufts, Wellesley, Williams, and Yale, among others.

In presenting the Pax Populi Peacemaker Award to Achilles, Applied Ethics/Pax Populi founder and leader Robert E. McNulty, PhD noted that Achilles demonstrated enormous courage, kindness, and a commitment to peace by providing so many Afghans students with both educational training as well as placement services in some of America’s finest secondary schools and universities. In so doing, SOLA supports what is held by Pax Populi to be one of the three essential pillars of civil society: education.

Engraved on the award given to Mr. Achilles appears the following simple acknowledgement:
“The Pax Populi Peacemaker Award To Ted Achilles, Founder and Director of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA), 30 April 2011, Through your tremendous courage and kindness you are helping to create a more peaceful world.”

Congratulations, Mr. Achilles! We are in awe of you and SOLA. We are witnesses to the many lives that have been transformed through you and the wonderful people at SOLA, both in Afghanistan and the United States. Those of us associated with Pax Populi are honored to have this opportunity to recognize the extraordinary work you are doing, the greatness of which is found not simply in the actions themselves, but the love, generosity, and goodness from which they spring. May the spirit of peacemaking that pervades your work be blessed and continue to flourish always.