Working for peace in Afghanistan

Ellis Brooks writes about his experience of volunteering in Afghanistan

by Ellis Brooks 29th January 2016

‘Do you want to come to Afghanistan with me and do some peace education?’

This was the question asked by Maya Evans from Voices for Creative Nonviolence UK, which, eventually, led me in late 2015 to the Border Free Centre in Kabul with nearly fifty children from the streets.

I had been working with Maya on the Fly Kites Not Drones resource that lots of British schools are now using to explore human rights in Afghanistan, but that’s very different from teaching in another country. Fifty kids would be a challenge anywhere and with jetlag and only a few hours learning Dari through my headphones I wasn’t sure it would work.