Supporting the Provincial Elections

The Afghan people are on the verge of yet another unprecedented and historic election on 18 September where they will elect their provincial leadership (think: Senators and Congressmen). Our team has been out in the streets of Nangarhar province polling the locals and handing out a paper called "Peace Radio" which promotes rule of law, Afghan nationalism and contains information about the elections.The paper has a list of frequencies and times that people can listen in on the radio to informational broadcast about the upcoming elections as well as equal airtime that is given to the candidates (a good idea stateside, if you ask me).

Since illiteracy is still as high as 80% in some districts, our team, with the help of the Marines have distributed nearly seven-thousand radios in the last two months, mostly to outlying rural areas.Enthusiasm is high and literally everyone within voting age that we've talked to has told us they are planning to vote. The only problem we have here is that, as men, we've not been allowed to poll the women as Nangarhar is a very conservative province. Still, UN figures suggest an even higher turnout for women than last time, which is encouraging. There are some female candidates as well and we're wishing them the best of luck.