Good afternoon, Friends and Neighbors
In Afghanistan - the children and their families need urgent attention. I have provided as much information as I can. I have shared this with key persons: Mr. Elon Musk, World Food Program, IRC[International Rescue Committee, Central Asia Institute, WHO Chief Science officer and others. I need your help get the help the children need, especially the girl children aged 5 to 10-11 who are being commoditized tragically[trafficked essentially] to feed their erstwhile families.
I hope this finds you doing well, thriving, and staying safe in the midst of all the fast-paced currents of the Global Pandemic that threatens to overwhelm all that we hold dear by separating us from so many of our near and dear ones and people in our communities and threaten our livelihoods in every continent.
I have focused my efforts on responding to the horrible calamitous human tragedies that are already unfolding in Afghanistan and sharing my professional expertise to help reduce a sense of foreboding and affirm self-agency among staff all sections of the Govt across the Country, enhance collaborative strategies enhance between Nonprofit Organizations operating on the ground in close contact with the children and families who are being tormented with callous individuals with power who are exploiting their children who should be in elementary school by commoditizing their precious innocent lives.
Another area of concern is that these seemingly inescapable traumatic experiences, sense of abandonment, kidnapping, being subject to partner violence, coerced intimacy, forced labor and even slavery, and child labor by girls, Trafficking- being sold to powerful men who control every aspect of their life and deprive any opportunity for educational pursuits or social, community networks. This report explains how these terrible ever tightening nooses on their emotional, social, personal goals and aspirations can lead to increased incidence of suicide especially with serious lack of mental resources and support for girls and women in their families, community, and nation as a whole. This is an excerpt, “ Mental health experts says a major reason is rampant domestic violence - 30% of all women told a recent government survey that they had faced spousal violence - and the daily drudgery that can make marriages oppressive and matrimonial homes suffocating. “ Women are really resilient, but there's a limit to tolerance," says Dr Usha Verma Srivastava, a clinical psychologist in the northern city of Varanasi.
There is much that women in the Indian subcontinent which includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India share about their miserable, mental challenging lives. What's behind suicides by thousands of Indian housewives? - BBC News. Sadly, SDG among its 17 goals does not define specific Goals with respect to the goals with respect to emotional wellness and personal autonomy and liberty to make choices that advance their goals and address their individual needs in Goal #3 Good health and Wellbeing.
The consequences to the individual precious children to the families now and in future generations of decades to come are incalculable but can be addressed and some of the effects can even be reversed if a comprehensive masterplan can be developed that address the key factors of the Social determinants of Health while working on helping the people of Afghanistan to attain the key goals specified in the SDG -2030 for their beautiful and resilient and ruggedly independent nation as a whole at long last.
I am sharing links to my comprehensive document which is my response to Mr. Elon Musk’s challenge he posted on Twitter on Oct 31, 2021 to the WFP. I am unable to find a response from either UN’s WFP or the WFH in Afghanistan. I have written to leaders of both these groups as well at IRC, the CAI which is doing great service for children and women in the region as wheel the Chief Scientist of WHO.
These efforts are connected to my work in CT and the USA and efforts to assist people in our countries:
Some years I decided to try to incorporate the stated mission of the Ministry of Girls and Women Development into my advocacy efforts. I have corresponded with Hon. Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi on these key policy goals: Beti Bacchao, which includes pre-partum and postpartum efforts to eliminate or severely curtail the birth, growth, and development of girl babies, Beti Paddhavo and Beti Khilao to foster excellence in Education and achievement in Sports among our daughters. This is bound to have significant positive effects on the entire community including on the welfare of all children. Naari Shakti Badhao is a message propagated by the PM Hon. Sri Narendra Modi himself especially in recognition of the service to all aspects of the development of the community including Science, [Space, IT, Medicine, Agriculture, Pharmaceuticals] Military and Socio-Cultural domains.
These are the principles that have provided the spiritual foundation for these major policy initiatives that have been promoted annually especially during the Q1 of the year.
Vande Mataram: वंदे मातरम् Vande Maataram I Republic Day Special I Independence Day I Patriotic Song I Deshbhakti - YouTube Strinaam Paadatalam Drstvaa- Guruvad Bhaavayet Sadaa: Who has observed the feet of women, regard them respectfully like you would your Guru’s feet. Kubjika Tantra Satyam Eva Jayate; Truth alone triumphs when all is said and done.
I welcome your responses. I need you advice to make sure these links and reports reach people who can help to collectively mobilize resources and plan a comprehensive plan to address the grave and ongoing threats with long term and perhaps even permanent adverse changes that can endanger public health and safety especially with demographic youth bulges in demographics that is extant in wide swath across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.
Please can we reason together and work together as one to somehow prepare a spreadsheet of domains that need to be named and strategies needed to address the components of the overall key Social Determinants of health for the whole population and special concerns about the horrible fate of being born a girl and the trauma of being sold as a commodity as a sack of Opium Poppy to the highest bidder. The Spreadsheet mentioned must include the 17 domains of the SDG in order to coordinate the allocation of resources and assignment of technical assets and available human talent, knowhow, and oversight capability on the ground in Afghanistan. I am offering an Attachment on the SDG-2030 for Afghanistan and a link to the UNDP.org.
The two different effects of famine are to:
1. Current infants and younger children because mothers cannot suckle them because they cannot produce milk and they themselves are too famished to nurture and inculcate them with basic skills.
2. to the children who are conceived and carried to full term if at all possible by God's grace during severe famine. The effect of this impoverishment is well established the children after birth can be downright dreadful, cognitively emotional interpersonally and delayed development. Plus, the type of nutrition and severe stress for e.g., abuse and trauma plus loss of motherhood of daughters to favor the survival of her sons and family can greatly increase the risk of preeclampsia and eclampsia and possible loss of life of the mother and the babies perinatally. Further physical and sexual abuse, abandonment when children are 0 -15 can cause major pathological neuro- endocrine - immunological and psycho-social adaptations that can cause serious damage to the length of the Telomeres, reduce longevity, set up serious psychiatric disorders as well increased risk of the medical disorders including Obesity, Hypertension, eating disorders, self-injury, Diabetes. I have extensive information on the impact of Adverse childhood Experiences. [Psycho- Neuro-Immuno-Endocrine- Epigenetic- Social]
But, I have good news, except for the consequences of Famine on the babies at a particular stage of their pregnancy the consequences of the other threats on the children and adults can be gradually reversed so the Telomeres lengthen, and the Epigenetic damage can be reversed over a period of careful comprehensive treatment extending to 18 to 36 months. If we cannot do this in good part of the population the children of the girl children, adolescents and adult women who carry these Epigenetic injury and induced anomalies can be transmitted during fertilization of the egg with these damaged chromosomes by the sperm to a bay with very negative consequences and incur incalculable human and huge financial costs.
Then here is important domain of identifying specific SDG for specific populations of Afghanistan and the nation as whole and invest heavily in making these goals achievable in the next 12- 24 months. This would include for me massive immunization program nationally to immunize all the babies, and children with all the Vaccines that can protect them and do our best to limit and reduce Under 5 child mortality. The rate had come down globally from 93/1000 live births in 1990 to 38 in 2019. WE MUST not allow the rate of hard-fought efforts to go back up. The U5MR Graphs as it stood before this [up to 2019 were heartwarming]
The double whammy now is the possibility for the graph bend up wards and then horror of horrors the girl who survive and attain elementary school age will not be seeing the inside of a classroom when she becomes 5 -9 or 10 can be sold off and separated from her family who helped her to survive. The Link #XII provides the most up-to-date data on the Afghanistan HC system on the brink. It is exceedingly alarming.
I am offering this link: https://www.af.undp.org/.../sustainable-development-goals.... There are great potentially achievable goals over the next three years with sustained effort and resourcefulness. I am offering an Attachment on the SDG-2030 for Afghanistan. Sadly, these goals include Goal #3 [Good health and Wellbeing] don’t include strategies to address serious MH challenges including major Disorders and suicide risks especially among women and girls faced due to prevailing traumatic experiences as children, trafficking, forced marriage, rape, domestic violence, inescapable grinding poverty as well the critical Determinants of Health and Mental Health, Housing and food insecurity and access to educational and vocational opportunities especially for girls. I want to assert that Good health and Wellbeing cannot be achieved without addressing the critical challenges I have specified on Pages 1 and 2.
I.
A.
Response to Elon Musk and World Food Program: Solve World Hunger (velandymanoharmd.com). I welcome your responses.
I have posted relevant information on Twitter @velandyMD
B.
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Replying to @DrEliDavid
If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.
9:50 AM · Oct 31, 2021
338.3K
13.3K
I have responded @velandyMd
These two are very descriptive and meaningful reports from two fine reporters.
II.
Rebecca Cohen
Afghanistan will be 'hell on earth' as millions are in danger of starving with food running out, food program head says (msn.com) Rebecca Cohen
III.
Jane Ferguson of PBS
14 million Afghans need food assistance to survive, but most foreign aid remains frozen | PBS NewsHour
IV. Data from the World Food Program: https://docs.wfp.org/.../docu.../WFP-0000130423/download/....
I liked the two section Operational Context and Operational Updates. For a psychiatrist context is very thing when we assess and begin the work of engaging with single person or family or a community.
VI:
Our Goals - Central Asia Institute | Supporting women and girls
V.
Sustainable Development Goals | UNDP in Afghanistan. Goal #3 [Good health and Wellbeing] Must immediately be amended to include Key MH goals. There is no Health and Wellbeing without MH being enhanced and resilience rebuilt.
VI.
Taliban rule marked by killings, denial of women's rights - U.N. (msn.com)
VII.
What Taliban mean for Afghans, writes Afghan woman mayor Zarifa Ghafari | VIEW - News Analysis News (indiatoday.in)
VIII
How Sharyn Alfonsi, 60 Minutes Secured Afghanistan Humanitarian Aid Story – The Hollywood Reporter
Face to face with the Taliban: Inside 60 Minutes' report from Afghanistan - CBS News
IX.
https://www.msn.com/.../a-murder-a-warning.../ar-AAQRTiW... A powerful report from Mr. Ali Latifi
X.
For a Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan, and the Rest of the World, a Crisis Looms (msn.com) 12 13 21
Mr. Trofimov is the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of The Wall Street Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].
XI
Afghanistan's Health Care System on Brink of Collapse (voanews.com)
The diesel fuel needed to produce oxygen for coronavirus patients has run out. So have supplies of dozens of essential drugs. The staff members, unpaid for months, still show up for work, but they are struggling to make ends meet at home. This is the plight at the Afghan-Japan Hospital for communicable diseases, the only COVID-19 facility for the more than 4 million people who live in the capital of Kabul. While the coronavirus situation in Afghanistan appears to have improved from a few months ago when cases reached their peak, it is now the hospital itself that needs life support. Its predicament is a symptom of the crisis in Afghanistan's health care system, which is on the brink of collapse and able to function only with a lifeline from aid organizations. “We face many problems here," said Dr. Ahmad Fatah Habibyar, the hospital's administration logistics manager, citing three months of unpaid salaries, shortages of equipment and drugs, and a lack of food. Some of the staff are in such financial difficulties that they are selling their household furniture to make ends meet, he said.
XII.
Afghanistan will be 'hell on earth' as millions are in danger of starving with food running out, food program head says (msn.com)
XIV.
On Tuesday, CNN’s 12 21,The Lead With Jake Tapper showed graphic footage of malnourished children in Afghanistan as the United Nations is warning of a “humanitarian catastrophe” inside the Taliban-controlled country. Camilla is 2.5 years old and weighs just over 11 Ibs., according to Coren, who said that Camilla is “one of at least a million Afghan children under the age of 5 at risk of dying from starvation.”
For months the U.N. has been sounding the alarm, warning that Afghanistan was on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe,” she continued. “The Taliban takeover on the 15th of August saw international funds immediately dry up, triggering an economic collapse in an already-impoverished country where foreign aid represented 43 percent of the country’s GDP and 75 percent of government spending, according to the World Bank.”
XV
Afghan health care faces collapse amid economic crisis (msn.com)
It didn't happen in the last four months. Malnutrition was inherited from the previous system, but we are trying to find a solution for this problem," he said, adding that the former administration also had failed to resolve shortages of medical equipment.
WHO official Dalil said Afghanistan had an effective health information system, which was the outcome of years of investment in health care. "It is important to keep that alive and working," she said.
On Wednesday,[12 22 21] the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a US-proposed resolution to help humanitarian aid reach desperate Afghans while seeking to keep funds out of Taliban hands.
The UN has also warned of a hunger crisis, with 22% of Afghanistan's 38 million people near famine and another 36% facing acute food insecurity.
"We're seeing the economic collapse being exponential," Griffiths told The Associated Press last week. "It's getting more and more dire by the week."
XVI.
No Need: Taliban Dissolves Afghanistan Election Commission. Karimi said the authorities had also dissolved two government departments this week – the Ministry of peace, and the Ministry of parliamentary affairs. The Taliban has already shut down the former administration’s Ministry of Women’s affairs and replaced it with the Ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.
That Ministry for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice earned notoriety during the Taliban’s first stint in power in the 1990s for harshly enforcing religious doctrine. The Taliban government is pressing the international community to restore billions of dollars in suspended aid and have pledged a more moderate rule this time around.
XVI.
Afghanistan's Taliban authorities said Sunday that women seeking to travel anything other than short distances should not be offered transport unless they are accompanied by a close male relative.
The guidance, issued by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, also called on all vehicle owners to offer rides only to those women wearing Islamic hijabs. [This Ministry had acquired a fearsome reputation before the Taliban were removed from power in the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom 20 years ago.VM] In several provinces, local Taliban authorities have been persuaded to reopen schools -- but many girls still remain cut off from secondary education.
Early this month, the Islamist group issued a decree in the name of their supreme leader instructing the government to enforce women's rights. The decree did not mention girls' access to education.
Activists hope that the Taliban's battle to gain international recognition and get aid flowing back into one of the poorest countries in the world will lead to them making concessions to women.. Respect for women's rights has repeatedly been cited by key global donors as a condition for restoring aid. Women's rights were severely curtailed during the Taliban's previous stint in power.[By Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice] Sadly the Taliban Item XVI- The Taliban have decided to take draconian measures to curtail the freedoms of girls and women that they had enjoyed in the past 20 years. VM
It is still my most fervent hope that women and children of Afghanistan will be able to experience individual liberty and self-determination in a nation that has made progress on achieving specific goals in the especially high priority, high need domains among the 17 Sustainable Developmental Goals. During this period in the future when it can be perhaps achieved this generation of children of Afghanistan is will be able to enjoy the blessings in many nations are able to and thus be successful in breaking the intergenerational transmission of fear, helplessness, a sense of futility and desire to strike out and neutralize the least bit of perceived advantage another group may have eked out.
BLESSED ARE THE CHILDREN who are taught to see beauty in all things around them… for their world will be a place of grace and wonder.
BLESSED ARE THE CHILDREN who are led with patience and understanding… for they will learn the strength of endurance and the gift of tolerance.
BLESSED ARE THE CHILDREN who are taught the value and power of truth…for they shall search for knowledge and use it with wisdom and discernment.
BLESSED ARE THE CHILDREN who are guided by those with faith in a loving God ... for they will find Him early and will walk with Him through life
BLESSED ARE THE CHILDREN who are loved… and know that they are loved… for they shall sow seeds of love in the winds and reap joy for themselves and others. I commend these prayerful good wishes to the blessings of our Almighty God.
It seems to me that what is happening in Afghanistan is constituted by specific MASS CASUALITY EVENTS widely distributed over the whole country of Afghanistan affecting every one of the 40 million people.
I am attaching a report of the work done by a delegation [P2P Delegation] of Psychiatrists and Psychologists in 2008 to learn more about the horrendous multi-dimensional impact of the American War in VN besides the effects of Agents Orange/defoliants and the Catastrophic Genocide that was perpetrated in Cambodia. I worked with some of the organization including Non-Profits, especially those working with victims of Genocide and victims of Partner violence , Children and Adults with HIV and Universities and Hospitals for a few years after I returned and helped out with my Colleagues especially when the Co- Leader of the delegation Dr. Pedro Ruiz, MD became President of the World Psychiatric Assoc and include Cambodia as an ‘Associate member.’
Another development was purely accidental- After I met some VN veterans in a sightseeing bus in Athens my well-placed friends in the Rotary International in New England, USA, Singapore, and their contact in Cambodia were connected to the Veterans group who wanted to give back for the wrongs done in the secret war in Cambodia by installing wells under the Rotary Program “Make Dreams Real.” I still have the Lapel pin distributed by the Rotary Club International.
I am introducing myself with my Resume. I don’t know how I or the Committee Members and the CT State Medical Society [CSMS] may be able to help. I can’t speak for my committee or the CSMS as a whole. But I will be glad to share your thoughts on what we may be able to do that may be helpful.
Please use any or all of the information I have shared.
By the way, I have very detailed posts on Managing the threat to our communities posed by SARS-CoV. 2. I have also extensive posts on educating people to promote their personal health and wellbeing as well as the communities they live in more effectively You are welcome to access and utilize any or all of the information.
I may be able to connect with you live by zoom if you are in Central Asia because if we have a 10-hour difference in time 10PM in the USA is likely to be 8 AM in Afghanistan and 8Am in the USA may be 6 PM in your area which are convenient times on some days of the week. I did consultation with people in Cambodia and Viet Nam after the visit of the P2P Ambassador Program delegation went to Cambodia and Viet Nam to understand especially the effect of the Genocide and the American War in the Mekong delta. I am Psychiatrist. My website will provide you some ideas on my areas of interest and abilities. velandymanoharmd.com. On this site and in my data base I have a great deal of information on COVID -19 virus and managing threats to people. Please feel to access and utilize this and other information on promoting health and enhancing well-being, dealing with loss, and coping with stress.
I welcome your responses. I am soliciting help to get a comprehensive plan enunciated and systematically implemented all available resources to Achieve the Goals of Sustainable Development Goals-2030 for Afghanistan BUT DONT FORGET reclaiming MENTAL HEALTH MUST BE PART OF HEALTH PROMOTING GOALS These are not included in Goal #3- Good health and Wellbeing of the SDG-30
Velandy Manohar, MD., Distinguished Life Fellow, Am. Psychiatric Assoc.[APA] Chair, Community Engagement and Outreach Standing Committee of the Community Advisory Council of Office of Health Strategy-CT. Founding member- Community Resilience Collaborative- Mx. County-CT focused on Childhood trauma, Past Steering Committee and Founding member of the Psychotherapy Caucus of APA, Nancy Berger Member award from CT. Multi-Cultural Health partnership. Impact Award winner form in Home Addiction Treatment Institute- Aware Recovery Care. Medical Director-CT Aware Recovery Care, [ARC] President,[ We are in 8 states] ARC In Home Addiction Treatment, PC.