WEST POINT, N.Y. (Feb. 4, 2011) -- The West Point Middle School received three special visitors Jan. 26 when three Afghan teenage girls arrived at West Point to share their experiences with students here.
Manizha, Pashtana and Sahar are from different ethnic groups of Afghanistan and live with about 180 other girls in an all-female orphanage in Kabul.
They were here for three days as emissaries in cooperation with the Afghan Child Education and Care Organization, an Afghan non-profit organization based in Kabul with a mission of working for Afghan children.
There are about 600 children in AFCECO-sponsored orphanages in Afghanistan.
The visitors ate lunch with the middle school students, audited an eighth grade Social Studies class and gave a short talk at an assembly. The children talked about how they came to the orphanage- coming from families torn by war or poverty and how the orphanage provided education and safety to the youths-a rarity for female children in Afghanistan.
They also ate at the Mess Hall with cadets, went to a class with a cadet, ice skated for the first time with the Army Hockey Team at Tate Rink, visited the Admissions department and spoke at the post library.
"The children are here on a mentorship program," Ian Pounds, an American volunteer teacher who works at the orphanage, said. "They shadow professionals and are training in English skills. They also visit colleges and universities, experiencing a wide slice of American life."
The three young women are staying with a sponsor in Connecticut for three months.
While at the orphanage, children attend a public school for three hours a day and receive some education at the orphanage by volunteer teachers like Pounds, Afghan volunteers, university students and instructors.
"The education is very rudimentary and spotty with a thin curriculum," Pounds said. "We augment it with other programs."
Pounds said the first generation of children raised in the orphanage is now approaching university age.
"The orphanage will see them through their lives and support them as a family," he said.
The AFCECO organization was founded in 2008 and is registered with the Afghan government as a non-governmental and non-political organization and works closely with Charity Help International, a U.S.-based organization that oversees the Child Sponsorship Program.
Nearly 300 children who have been sponsored by individuals around the world are being cared for by AFCECO orphanages in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For more information of AFCECO, visit the website at http://joomtest.afceco.org/.
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