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Afghan Air Force and Army joint mission focuses on education

  • Published
  • By MC1(AW) Elizabeth Burke
  • 438th AEW PA
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN --  The Afghan Air Force and the Afghan National Army's 209th Corps joined together for the first time for a Humanitarian Assistance mission, focusing on the importance of education, in a village outside of Mazar-e-Sharif on July 27, 2010.

Major General Rahimi, ANA 209th Corps Chief of Staff and Brigadier General Ashraf, Mazar-e-Sharif AAF detachment commander met with village elders and distributed school supplies to children in grades one through seven.

One retired teacher said that in his 40 years of teaching, he had never received any school supplies from the Afghan government and was excited to receive them.

"We organized the school supplies and we learned from the Americans how to organize the mission and how to work as a team. We stayed with our soldiers and we heard about their problems. We had hopes of helping the school children. The people appreciated us helping them. It made me feel really happy because their families can save money and use it somewhere else. The children are the future," said 2Lt Qudratullah Hamidzai. "It was also good for the Air Force and the Army to build a relationship. The promise I made to my president on my graduation day was to serve Afghanistan and I did it."

The mission took two weeks to plan with village elders, Ministry of Education officials, the Air Force and the Army. Approximately 600 children received backpacks. In each backpack were notebooks, pens, pencils, and maps of the world and Afghanistan. Boys received hats and girls received socks and scarves.

The children were out on summer break, but were notified through the village mosque that the school supplies would be distributed. School supplies for an additional 400 children went into storage for the future, one that is focused on education.