‘Bulldog’ soldier educates Afghan women on first aid

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan - In a building built for instruction and praise sits a classroom full of influential female Afghan teachers as a soldier assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division sits down and begins teaching.

The lesson is first aid and first-responder techniques, and how to identify health problems and solve those ailments in young children.

"During a key leader engagement, we asked if there was anything we could do to help the community," said Army Sgt. Jessica Keown, of Palmer. "We offered to give them first aid classes they could take to the surrounding areas and help with lower-level illnesses and injuries."

"We devised a plan to give classes over the course of a few weeks," she said.

Keown, a medic assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Special Troops Battalion, said the plan was to conduct the classes over the course of a few weeks.

"There are about 35-40 female teachers in the class," she said. "After they grasp it, they'll get a certificate, and they're going to go out into the villages and set up their own classes to educate the people with the hope this makes the surrounding areas more aware of health issues.

"The main duty of the classes we give is to teach them how to heal sprains, breaks, fractures and bleeding. They can identify problems with their students because the teacher-student relationship here is on a much more personal level, so a lot of teachers would be able to identify and correct health problems in their students, keeping the younger generation healthy and ready to learn."

The education is more than just a way for Afghan women to help improve the health of the country's children, said Army Capt. Jasmine Walker.

"It's not just about women's empowerment in Afghanistan," said Walker, HHC, STB commander. "The Afghan system for education is much different than ours in America. The schools are government-funded, and they are solely responsible for the care of those children in most cases. The families of those children are in some cases very poor and depend on the schools to provide everything from notebooks to pens. Providing health care classes for the teachers within Pul-e-Alam district will be a great benefit to the children and families of the district."

Teachers hold an influential role in the lives of Afghan children, Walker said.

"Helping them ease some stress off the families to tend to the health needs of children will hopefully build the relationship between schools and families," Walker said.

"Our goal, in short, is to set up a train the trainer scenario with these influential women of Pul-e-Alam district so eventually they will teach the lessons they've learned and spread it throughout the district and hopefully the province."

MORE ONLINE

Read a related Frontiersman story about Palmer resident Sgt. Jessica Keown at tinyurl.com/6twj895.