2009.03.26: March 26, 2009: Headlines: COS - Afghanistan: COS - Thailand: NGO's: Westport Minuteman: Thailand RPCV Leslie Wilson has been field director for "Save the Children" for the last six years in Afghanistan
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2009.03.26: March 26, 2009: Headlines: COS - Afghanistan: COS - Thailand: NGO's: Westport Minuteman: Thailand RPCV Leslie Wilson has been field director for "Save the Children" for the last six years in Afghanistan
Thailand RPCV Leslie Wilson has been field director for "Save the Children" for the last six years in Afghanistan
Wilson, who has also worked as a Peace Corps volunteer and an educator, chose to focus on the positive aspects of development work in Afghanistan where Save The Children has had a huge impact on the 14 provinces within the country in which it has a presence. One impressive statistic is a six-fold increase in the number of children in school, from less than a million in 2002 to more than six million today.
Thailand RPCV Leslie Wilson has been field director for "Save the Children" for the last six years in Afghanistan
Save the Children works to improve life in Afghanistan
By:Bonnie Adler, Staff Writer
03/26/2009
"A country with a thousand shades of brown ..." is the description provided by Save the Children's Leslie Wilson, a field director who spent the last six years in Afghanistan. Wilson spoke at Save The Children's headquarters in Westport last Thursday, focusing on the positive aspects of the work thus far accomplished in what she called one of the driest and dustiest places on earth - a mountainous country which is often described as repressive, brutally poor, uneducated and undernourished.
Much of Wilson's presentation was geared to describing programs funded in part by the Greenwich Leadership Council, which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Save the Children since 2006. Many members of the council were in attendance, as was former United States Representative Christopher Shays, a former Peace Corps volunteer now under consideration for a top post in the international organization.
Wilson, who has also worked as a Peace Corps volunteer and an educator, chose to focus on the positive aspects of development work in Afghanistan where Save The Children has had a huge impact on the 14 provinces within the country in which it has a presence. One impressive statistic is a six-fold increase in the number of children in school, from less than a million in 2002 to more than six million today.
One of the largest of the non-governmental organizations in the world, Save the Children directs much its efforts to helping mothers and children in a variety of community-based initiatives such as one Wilson focused upon, a community midwifery program which is an 18-month program which teaches women pre-natal, labor and delivery skills which, according to Wilson, far surpass the medical skills of Russian-trained medical doctors. She called the program "state of the art," with a focused, western-standard education in the tradition of American internships and residencies. Local women are taught to become midwives who can accomplish the safe delivery of normal babies, learn the danger signs of high risk pregnancies, and provide emergency response.
Wilson said that although the women undergo the challenging training, it is also important to recognize that the males in the society, the husbands and fathers who allow their wives and daughters to take the programs, must be celebrated as well, for they have in many cases stepped beyond traditional boundaries by permitting their family members to participate in such a "modern day" class.
Other goals within the communities are as basic as teaching malnourished children to eat a healthier diet and to wash their hands frequently. Individuals are invited to share what they have learned within the community, often improving community-wide basic health care as a result.
Wilson said that much time and resources have also been spent teaching medical personnel to look beyond the common presenting problems of coughing and diarrhea to consider what ailments might be causing these symptoms.
©Westport Minuteman 2009
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Story Source: Westport Minuteman
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