Subscribe
FARAH, Afghanistan - Far away from major cities, in the western region of Afghanistan lies Farah province. Cradled in the crevices of the rock formations and across the sprawling desert, nomadic people find their home.
The residents, who find their home more permanent in Farah, live much like they used to hundreds of years of ago. Most live off the land growing crops to feed their families and most still build their houses from the ground around them and most of them do not have electricity.
Living alongside these people is the Farah Proventil Reconstruction Team. This team assists the Afghan government in Farah with many different projects and also works to enable their local government to take control of situations and projects of their own.
“On the engineering side, we don’t actually go out and decide on a lot of the projects,” said U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. David Gunn, chief engineer for PRT Farah. “We get a lot of the projects from the governor, the provincial councils and the district governors. When they come up with what they want, we design it for them and once the construction starts we follow up on it.”
Not only has the PRT overseen and assisted with the construction of hundreds of projects in the province, but they also spend much of their time mentoring the different Afghan ministries that run Farah. The PRT uses what it has to its advantage to achieve the maximum effect for their goals. They use reservists, who work at the PRT but also have civilian jobs outside of the military, in perspective roles where their knowledge and expertise can be most useful.
“Being active duty Navy, I’ve never worked with reservists or anyone non-Navy before so it’s really cool to work with the reservist, because they bring a different aspect on life. It’s nice that they can bring that different perspective to the table,” Gunn said.
PRT Farah, like other PRTs throughout Afghanistan, has more switched its focus to advancing the government around the province rather than just building facilities.
“In the past as PRTs were trying to build capacity, they would just build things and turn it over to the government,” Gunn said. “We’re kind of forcing them, because we are leaving here, forcing them to choose what projects to build. That forces the different government agencies to talk together and work together.”
Although the PRT is working diligently to enable the Afghan government in Farah, they are still working on many projects. Most of the projects are Afghan led and brought to the table by the local Afghan government.
“As a PRT, we are trying to get away from the real basic development stuff because there are a lot of groups in the area doing the same thing,” said U.S. Army 1st Lt. Robert Ufer, civil affairs, team leader for Farah PRT. “We think it’s a better expenditure with the expertise we have and the way the PRT is built. It’s better to be working on helping the government be better at governing, I think it’s more rewarding.”
In one of the most remote places in Afghanistan, Farah PRT is assisting the Afghan government in providing a secure future for their people.
| Date Taken: | 03.09.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 03.11.2011 04:51 |
| Story ID: | 66839 |
| Location: | FARAH, AF |
| Web Views: | 69 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Farah PRT empowering local Afghans, by SSG Michael Reinsch, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
