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Reservist helping Afghanistan women
Article published on Thursday, July 5, 2007 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/070507_fpg-04.jpg) |
| U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Joyce Cole, Provincial Reconstruction Team, meets with the director of the Green Afghanistan Initiative on June 13 to talk about the work-for-food program taking place at the small nursery. |
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TARPON SPRINGS – In a place where literacy rates are some of the poorest in the world, the daughter-in-law of a Tarpon Springs couple is bringing a ray of hope.
Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Joyce M. Cole, whose husband, Travis, is the son of Eddie L. and Alease Cole of Tarpon Springs, is part of a civil affairs team in Qalat, Afghanistan, who met with leaders of a local girls’ school and a center that focuses on helping women to better themselves.
As a member of a provincial reconstruction team, Cole visited the school and center to provide assistance and moral support to an agency that’s doing much to further the cause of women in Afghanistan.
“You could tell by the expressions on their faces that they were intrigued by seeing us there,” said Cole. “I was impressed with how courteous and attentive they were.”
The Green Afghanistan Initiative Center, is a small, unassuming nursery that offers women the opportunity to participate in a work-for-food program. In exchange for three hours of work a day, for 21 days a month, the center provides women with food items such as beans, wheat, salt and oil.
“The director of the center told me that the women who participate in this program are very courageous,” said Cole, “because they still come to work even after receiving threats from some of the men in the city.”
There is optimism here, according to a senior U.S. government official, “and that goes a long way toward creating a better life for the children of Qalat, Zabul province and eventually for Afghanistan as a whole.”
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Article published on Thursday, July 5, 2007
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