Utahns work to give Afghan orphan a stronger stride through life
after a year spent in the mountains of Afghanistan, perhaps he just didn’t realize how big the mountain ahead of him really was.
but Layne Pace had a dream. He wanted to build a 1,000-bed orphanage and school on the outskirts of Kabul. and with the help and hard work of fellow citizen soldiers with whom he had served in the 211th Aviation Battalion, the Afghan Orphan Project was born.
five years later, the mountain is still there. and Pace and his comrades are still climbing.
“We really thought we were going to be able to get it done a lot faster,” said Pace, a battalion chief in the Orem fire Department. “But really, we were novices.”
but they were also flexible. so even as they continued to work toward the ultimate goal of building a home for some of Afghanistan’s more than 2 million orphans — including more than 600,000 thought to be homeless — they found that they could make a difference one person at a time.
on Friday, Pace and fellow members of the organization, which has been renamed The Afghan Orphan Project in recognition of a broader mission, were at Salt Lake City International Airport to greet Razia Niaz.
Niaz was just 6 years old when she lost her leg in a Taliban bombing that claimed the life of her father. she later lost her mother to brain cancer. now the 21-year-old college student is being supported by the Utah-based nonprofit, but Niaz was finding it difficult to make it on time to her classes while hobbling on an old prosthetic leg.
with help from Salt Lake City’s Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics, Niaz will have her prosthetic refurbished and will spend the next month in Utah undergoing physical therapy to get used to the refit.
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“It will bring a lot of changes in my life,” a travel-weary Niaz said moments after arriving in Salt Lake City.
Niaz is the first person the project has sponsored to come to the United States for medical care. The project has also helped coordinate medical care for more than a dozen orphans in their home country and has worked with Boy Scouts to collect and distribute clothing, school supplies and athletic equipment for children in Afghanistan.
Niaz said she felt fortunate to have met Pace during his last visit to Afghanistan a year and a half ago.
and Pace said he was fortunate to have met Niaz, who has helped teach him that even as big goals remain unmet, his group can still make a big difference in people’s lives.
“It’s great to see,” he said. “We’ve never doubted what we want to do, but these sorts of things make it so much more relevant. it lets us see that we’re making a difference.”
and it helps them stay determined to keep on climbing.
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Written by Tim on December 5, 2010 under Work From Home.
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