securing our future – not just a talking point

Image by Amber Clay from Pixabay

When I was in high school, every April, the principal would get on the PA and give his annual lecture about “rams butting heads” – which was his way of telling the boys to keep their tempers under control. Fights always seemed to peak in the springtime. Fifteen years after I first heard the speech, I found myself living in the Balkans. The principal’s voice would creep into my mind when I spoke with my colleagues about how we hoped for a late winter thaw to minimize the potential for springtime fighting.

Today, I find myself in Afghanistan.

Right after I arrived – just around the time that Josh Peck started sending emails about the global food crisis and ONE members could help – the demonstrations began in Afghanistan about the skyrocketing food prices. At the time, I was admittedly too busy trying to get used to a new job, making new friends, and adjusting to the altitude to do more research about how extreme poverty affects the Afghan people. But over the last couple of months, I have talked to more people, and a picture has begun to form.

25 years of war. Landlocked country with extreme summers and extreme winters. Low water tables. Dilapidated, bombed-out, under-funded, or non-existent schools. Ditto for health clinics. 70% illiteracy rate – as a population – female literacy rates are the lowest in the world. TB. 40% of the population has access to clean water. Malaria. 53% of the population lives below the poverty line. The highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Unexploded land mines. 40% official unemployment. A life expectancy of 43. The opium trade and the resulting crime. Internally displaced persons.

Afghanistan is a country full of vulnerable groups – widows, orphans, victims of war, IDPs, youth, woman. But there is one vulnerable group that doesn’t get mentioned enough – military-aged males. Boys who are just becoming men and about to make pivotal decisions about their futures. Do they choose the “straight and narrow” path – full of the struggles outlined above – unemployment, food insecurity, lack of access to health care, and education for their families? Or do they choose the “easy” way out and join with one of the criminal and anti-government elements so prevalent throughout the country?

ONE members know the OV08 tag-line – “Saving lives, securing our future” – but increased funding for international development is not just a talking point. Although I see examples of the positive impacts of international development daily in Kabul, I have been thinking about the “securing our future” portion a lot of the last couple of days as international news sources carried stories of the prison break in Kandahar. Many of them began with a phrase like “the summer violence in Afghanistan starts with a bang.” Again, the words of my high school principal and his springtime speech ran through my head. Then I thought of all the military-aged males here who are trying to decide what to do with their futures.

Poverty breeds instability.

As ONE members step up their engagements with presidential candidates this summer and fall – keep these boys in mind when you band the candidates. The “saving lives” part is easy to remember – providing essential medicines, increasing access to education, supplying clean water. But remember that it’s not just securing Americans’ futures. Giving choices to teenage boys is securing everyone’s future – so the boys then don’t have to resort to “butting heads” every spring to provide for their families.

This blog first appeared on the ONE.org blog in June 2008. Last accessed 9 October 2013.