VOLUNTEERING IN AFGHANISTAN

Our guest speaker on September 27th was Dr. Peter Sherk, a local civilian doctor specializing in Internal Medicine who volunteered to work at the medical facility at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan for a month last spring (and who will be returning there for a second volunteer stint next year). His impressions of his time there—and the images that illustrated the things (large and small) that brought the contrasts between "there" and "here" so vividly to him—were at times disturbing and at times humorous. His candid opinions on the situation that Canada (and the world) face in striving to help Afghanistan and its people gave us much food for thought.

The medical facility at the airfield offers the services available at most hospitals. Overseen by Canadians, it is staffed by military doctors, nurses and medical technicians from several Coalition nations, and treats patients from all the Coalition forces, as well as Afghan nationals. In fact, Dr. Sherk indicated that by far the majority of the patients they treated were Afghans.

To learn more about Canada's mission in Afghanistan, visit http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/afghanistan/index_e.asp. The images below are from that website.