KABUL, Afghanistan - "The soul of education is the education of the soul" - Pius X
Students at Charlotte Catholic High School in North Carolina begin each day with a walk under this profound message inscribed over the school’s entrance.
On Easter Day 2011, it was the spirit of this message which inspired a special bond between two diverse cultures on two continents: a belief in the importance of education.
The bonding began in Kabul, Afghanistan, seven thousand miles from Charlotte.
The 'walk-to-work' for many NATO Training Mission Advisors, based at Camp Eggers in Kabul, takes them along a wall past Kabul Amani School. Packed to capacity with boys and girls who line-up to learn, the school, the Advisors and the children are part of a rebirth of education in Afghanistan.
With the wall as protection, the advisors make their way to the Afghan Ministry of Defense, home of the Afghan national army. By building an effective Army capable of providing peace and security, the NTMA Advisors are helping to give birth to the education of the youth of Afghanistan and the recovery of an educational system traumatized a dozen years ago by the hard-line rule of the Taliban.
Mindful of potential danger around each corner, most NTMA Advisors hurriedly and cautiously walk along the wall as they pass Amani School, barely aware of the significance of what is being reborn on the other side of the wall - an increasingly educated populace protected as they learn by an Afghan Army NTMA Advisors strengthen daily.
Enter Harold Graziano, a senior advisor to the director of the Afghan national army general staff. "I had spoken with children on the sidewalks outside the school," says Graz as he's known to his friends. "They always were excited to share their accomplishments."
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