Playgrounds for peace: places to play in Afghanistan mean more than just slides and swings.

(Editor's note: The following account is based on the author's experience while stationed in Afghanistan in 2003.)

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, located in the heart of Central Asia, has an area of 251,825 square miles (slightly smaller than the state of Texas) and is completely landlocked. Afghanistan has an estimated population of 28 million people. The capital of Afghanistan, and its largest populated city, is Kabul, located in the east-central part of the country at an altitude of about 5,900 feet.

The current boundaries of Afghanistan were established in the late 19th century in the context of rivalry with Britain and Russia. Within the last 25 years, Afghanistan suffered ruinous effects of an invasion and military presence by the Soviet Union (1979-92), until it was forced to withdraw by anti-Communist mujahideen forces supplied and trained by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and others. Fighting subsequently erupted among the various mujahideen factions, giving rise to a state of war-lordism that spawned the Taliban.

Backed by foreign sponsors, the Taliban developed as a political force and ultimately seized power in 1996. Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, joint U.S. and Northern Alliance military action toppled the Taliban. Today, in addition to occasionally violent political jockeying and ongoing military action to root out remaining terrorists and Taliban elements, the country suffers from enormous poverty, a lack of skilled and educated workers, a crumbling infrastructure and widespread land mines.

It will probably take the remainder of the decade and continuing donor aid and attention to raise Afghanistan's living standards from its status among the lowest in the world. Afghanistan has limited natural freshwater resources, inadequate supplies of potable water, soil degradation, overgrazing, deforestation (much of the remaining forests are being cut down for fuel and building materials), desertification and air and water pollution.

Much of the population continues to suffer from shortages of housing, clean water, electricity, medical care and jobs. The new Afghan government and international donors remain committed to improving access to these necessities by prioritizing infrastructure development, education, housing development, jobs programs and economic reform throughout the next few years. Growing political stability and continued international commitment to Afghan reconstruction creates an optimistic outlook for maintaining improvements to the Afghan economy.

A New Afghanistan Army

Just a month following the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States placed coalition forces in the region, and began military operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda targets throughout Afghanistan. Eventually the Taliban was overthrown, and soon after representatives of various Afghan factions met in Bonn, Germany, with the backing of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan to map out Afghanistan's future. After painstaking negotiations between Afghan military commanders, representatives of Afghanistan's different ethnic groups, expatriate Afghans, and representatives of the exiled monarch, all the parties involved signed the Bonn Agreement on Dec. 5, 2001. Included in the Bonn Agreement was a call for the creation of an Afghanistan National Army (ANA).

The need for a professional, efficient, mobile, loyal, volunteer national army was the seed that began the creation of Coalition Joint Task Force Phoenix. To create an army large enough to support a national government, the U.S. military soon turned to conventional National Guard forces to provide training.

Virtually all the functioning infrastructure Afghanistan had was destroyed by the constant shooting, shelling and neglect that were common under the Taliban regime and during the more than 25 years of constant war. This includes the Afghan courts, parliament, a significant portion of the civil service and most of the educational and health systems. In addition, landmines still litter the country's landscape.

Based at Camp Phoenix in the capital city of Kabul, the U.S. Army embedded trainers to oversee the creation of the emerging ANA including the training, logistics and administrative and tactical procedures. In November 2003, I arrived in Afghanistan as a member of the activated South Carolina Army National Guard to train and deploy with the ANA.

Conditions of the Children

One of the most devastating effects of 25 years of war in Afghanistan is the deprivation of entire Afghan generation from the basic right of education and schooling. According to the United Nations, more than 5 million Afghan girls (90.9 percent) and 4.3 million Afghan boys, (74.1 percent) under the age of 15 cannot read or write a simple sentence. With more than 90 percent of Afghans living in poverty, the biggest challenge of Afghan families is to provide their school-age children with school material, such as notepads, pens, pencils, clothes and play equipment.

Afghan children were the main victims of the armed conflict in their country. Hundreds of thousands of them have been killed, disabled, orphaned and deprived of their basic right of education and schooling. Immunization remains a key concern in the area of health. Measles, for example, kills 35,000 children every year. Access to healthcare for women was severely restricted during the Taliban era, and a recent study undertaken in four Afghan provinces indicates that the country still has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world, estimated at 1,600 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Disease is prevalent among children, especially during summer months, because of severe water shortages notably in rural areas. Approximately 65 percent of the population in urban areas and 81 percent in rural areas do not have access to safe water. Landmines continue to threaten the lives of women and children on a daily basis. The latest estimates indicate that between 150 and 300 people are killed or injured by landmines every month in Afghanistan, many of them children.

There are an estimated three million children now attending some form of learning, the vast majority at the primary level. In addition, the enormous demand for education has placed more pressure on the school system in terms of physical access, the need for classroom supplies and the shortage of qualified teachers.

The focus of America's Fund for Afghan Children (AFAC) is to help the children of Afghanistan lead healthy and safe lives, and to provide them with educational opportunities. In its first year, more than 496,000 Afghan children have benefited from gifts of school chests (school supplies), winter relief items, and the rehabilitation of a local hospital in Kabul. In addition, AFAC is creating playgrounds to provide a safe place for more than 120,000 children to play without the fear of stepping on landmines.

The playgrounds provide safe areas for play, because many times the home environment is dangerous. Builders of the playgrounds also wanted to expand the social network for both children and mothers/care-givers, so they built playgrounds near laundry facilities. Additional playgrounds for children 7 to 12 years old were intended to allow the kids to interact in a fun, social atmosphere; to share ideas and experiences; to socialize with different genders and tribes; and give a sense of hope and the ability to think about the future with a positive outlook.

As embedded trainers/advisors with the U.S. Army assigned to the Afghan National Army, we had the unique opportunity to travel around the area. The ANA is establishing itself around the country, not just in the capital of Kabul, and therefore U.S. Army embedded trainers accompany their ANA soldiers all around the country.

We observed that play space, including playgrounds, in Afghanistan is very limited. What has not been destroyed by war, has not been maintained. In fact, the Taliban used the major soccer stadium in Kabul for weekly executions. There are very few parks, gardens, sports fields, or safe open spaces in Kabul or other major cities, and none at all in the rural areas of the country.

Most schools do not even have playgrounds. Open space next to the school buildings or tents may have volleyball nets. Soccer, which is a favorite sport among the Afghanis, would be played on the existing dirt and uses large rocks for goal posts. Children's play structures, when available, include swings and perhaps a slide. Resilient surfacing is a concept that has not entered into the Afghan consciousness, and Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) guidelines are a long way away. Just clearing land mines from play space is a major accomplishment.

The National Playground Safety Institute co-founder Monty Christiansen spearheaded the call for playground equipment donations from several major playground equipment manufacturers. Christiansen contacted playground equipment manufacturers, requesting equipment be sent to Afghanistan. Several companies answered the call, and before long, equipment was on its way.

Due to weight limitations (70 pounds) and the distances involved, playground equipment arrived in Afghanistan in stages. U.S. Army soldiers tried to put an Afghan face on the project, and ANA soldiers assisted with the assembly of the equipment on existing playgrounds at schools around the ANA base in Pol-e-Charkie (near Kabul) at two different sites. ANA soldiers assisted with painting the swing poles, hanging new swing chain and swing seats, and encouraging the children to play on the equipment.

The author would like to recognize BCI Burke Company, LLC, Landscape Structures, Inc., and Jensen Swing Products, Inc., whose donations of equipment for the children of Afghanistan were a start for a worthwhile cause.

NRPA is working with the U.S. Agency for International Development to build 100 playgrounds in Sri Lanka for communities hit by the tsunami. For more information, e-mail Cindy Welsh at [e-mail].