{"id":333254,"date":"2017-11-02T18:10:29","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T17:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/from-the-ground-up-dissident-voice\/"},"modified":"2017-11-02T18:10:29","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T17:10:29","slug":"from-the-ground-up-dissident-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/from-the-ground-up-dissident-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Ground Up | Dissident Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/2017\/10\/from-the-ground-up\/afghan-mothers-credit-afghan-peace-volunteers\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-73425\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-73425\" src=\"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Afghan-Mothers-Credit-Afghan-Peace-Volunteers-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\"   \/><\/a><em>Masoumah invites Afghan mothers to speak about difficulties they face (Photo: Afghan Peace Volunteers)<br \/><\/em><\/p>\n<p>On a recent Friday at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ourjourneytosmile.com\">Afghan Peace Volunteers<\/a>\u2018 (APV) Borderfree Center, here in Kabul, thirty mothers sat cross-legged along the walls of a large meeting room. Masoumah, who co-coordinates the Center\u2019s \u201cStreet Kids School\u201d project, had invited the mothers to a parents\u2019<\/p>\n<p>meeting. Burka-clad women who wore the veil over their faces looked identical to me, but Masoumah called each mother by name, inviting the mothers, one by one, to speak about difficulties they faced. From inside the netted opening of a burka, we heard soft voices and, sometimes, sheer despair. Others who weren\u2019t wearing burkas also spoke gravely. Their eyes expressed pain and misery, and some quietly wept. Often a woman\u2019s voice would break, and she would have to pause before she could continue<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have debts that I cannot pay,\u201d whispered the first woman<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy children and I are always moving from place to place. I don\u2019t know what will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am afraid we will die in an explosion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy husband is paralyzed and cannot work. We have no money for food, for fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy husband is old and sick. We have no medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI cannot feed my children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow will we live through the winter?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have pains throughout my whole body.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel hopeless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel depressed, and I am always worried.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel that I\u2019m losing my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The mothers\u2019&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/2017\/10\/from-the-ground-up\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Masoumah invites Afghan mothers to speak about difficulties they face (Photo: Afghan Peace Volunteers) On a recent Friday at the Afghan Peace Volunteers\u2018 (APV) Borderfree Center, here in Kabul, thirty mothers sat cross-legged along the walls of a large meeting room. Masoumah, who co-coordinates the Center\u2019s \u201cStreet Kids School\u201d project, had invited the mothers to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-333254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}