Published
internationally in July 2003 as Kabul: The Bradt Mini Guide.
First published in Kabul in September 2002
as a pamphlet.
What’s new
Bulletin Board
Services
Guesthouses
Articles
|
September 12
2002 A Guide to Kabul That
Helps The City’s Street Kids
Jude Barrand reporting from Kabul A guide to
Kabul co-written by Caritas Communicator, Jude Barrand is helping put a few
dollars in to the pockets of a handful of street sellers in the Afghan
capital. The Survival
Guide to Kabul is a 16-page pocket reference tool for all city-dwellers. It lists
hotels, restaurants, and all the sporting and cultural events in the city. An
exclusive article by the region’s most famous author, Ahmed Rashid, (the
bestsellers Taliban and Jihad are his best known books) has also boosted the
small pamphlet’s success. “As the first 500 copies rolled off the press
we realised we needed to find an effective way of getting our guide to
Kabulis and expats alike,” explains Dominic Medley from Internews, an NGO
that trains journalists worldwide. “The most
obvious solution was the street children who hawk the city’s many weekly
newspapers down at the main traffic inter-section in the commercial hub of
Kabul. We get wonderful distribution through the children, and they get to
keep the money they make by selling the guides.” The children have been quick to catch on to
the money-spinning venture and every morning come to the Internews office in
Kabul to pick up their daily quota of copies to sell. Armanullah is
12 and has been selling papers on the streets of Kabul ever since the city’s
printing presses started up again after the fall of the Taliban. Before that
he scavenged in rubbish tips for food. “I am happy to
be selling this paper,” he says of the guide. “I get to keep all the money I
make and some foreigners especially give me alot.” Up at the
Intercontinental, Kabul’s biggest hotel, foreign journalists wander through
the lobby holding Survival Guides to Kabul. On gently
interrogating two reporters from the main Japanese television network, it
emerges they bought their guides from the street children. Each paid a dollar
for their guide. Donal
O’Reilly, the Kabul Office Programme Manager for Caritas Member Organisation, CRS, was one of the many accosted by the street children at the
traffic lights. His reaction
was to pick up his phone and call the authors to congratulate them on the
positive off-spin to bringing out a guide: “You’ve got a
real income generating scheme going here,” he laughed. “The kids are out here
selling the guide to anyone they can. It looks like they are making a
killing.” A second print
run of 1,000 copies with a colour front and back page is due to hit the
streets in the next few days. Demand is running high. The guide has
been photocopied by the American Embassy and is being put in every
welcome-pack handed out to the embassy’s new arrivals. Aside from the
information and tips for surviving Kabul, there is a section explaining the
Caritas presence in Afghanistan and our global role. There is
similar section devoted to Internews. The guide is
available on the web for those planning a trip to Kabul, and the plain
curious at www.afrikamedia.com/afghanistan.htm (now
www.kabulguide.net). Sadly owing to Internet access restrictions
there are no pictures on-line yet, but the authors of the guide hope to
rectify that shortcoming in the next few weeks. END |
||||||||
|
كابل،
افغانستان |
The Survival Guide to Kabul©
|