One złoty at a time

For half the cost of a pack of chewing gum, Janina Ochojska says one Afghan refugee can be fed for a day. But that's not the only message that Ochojska, founder and president of the Warsaw-based Polish Humanitarian Action (PAH), hopes to impress on students across Poland during the next four weeks. Ochojska and PAH want the nation's students to start thinking globally - and acting locally.

Last week, in coordination with a nationwide drive to introduce "humanitarian education" curriculum in classrooms, PAH launched a fundraising campaign for Afghan refugees targeted at 10- to 19-year-old students. The effort will run until Dec. 14.

"We want each child to bring one złoty," Ochojska said. "It isn't much, but with more than 6 million students in Poland, you can imagine the power it can have."

But more than money, Ochojska wants a new generation of Poles to be at the forefront of humanitarian relief efforts throughout the world when and where they are needed.

"It's difficult to convince Poles that these types of things can work," said Ochojska, whose almost 9-year-old non-governmental organization assists victims of both international and domestic disasters. "We want (students) to know they can do something, and why they have to do it."

Just days into the campaign, she said about zł. 20,000 had already been raised.

"Eventually, we hope to have at least 200 schools participating across Poland," said Marcin Wojtalik, humanitarian education coordinator at PAH.

The money is earmarked for one refugee camp in southwest Afghanistan near the border with Iran, already packed with families displaced by the country's ongoing civil war. Among other items, Ochojska said Polish money will help build a much-needed hospital, as well as water-treatment infrastructure. PAH estimates the project will cost about $100,000.

PAH is no stranger to the plight of Afghans, whether reeling from man-made or natural disasters. Members of the organization were directly involved in the delivery of 39 metric tons of medicines, blankets, tents and other items (worth about $83,000) when an earthquake in the northern Rostaq region killed some 5,000 people in the spring of 1998.

When not at the mercy of nature, decades of civil war have left the country almost entirely dependent on international aid for food and basic medicines. Today, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), some 1.5 million people could be displaced in the current fighting, 70% of which are women and children. "It's important to keep this in the public eye, even though Poland is a thousand miles away," Wojtalik said.

PAH, however, has critics at home who say the organization spends too much time and effort on international relief, and not enough in Poland. The organization delivered direct relief to both Sarajevo and Kosovo, and in 1995 for victims of the Chechnya conflict, in addition to responding to various natural disasters in Turkey, India and Mozambique.

"I get calls from people who say that we shouldn't do anything outside Poland until poverty is solved here," Wojtalik said. "But we Poles received a lot of help in the 1980s and if we want to be a so-called developed country then we must deliver (aid) outside."

One złoty at a time.

Paul Shockley