Aschiana’s Kite Soirée Continues to Soar
by Gail Scott
The Washington Diplomat
06.06.2007
Two and a half years ago, Marie Kux, a French interior designer married to an American diplomat, was in Kabul, Afghanistan, with her husband and happened to visit the main Aschiana Center with a friend who volunteered there. When Marie came home to Old Town Alexandria, Va., she was haunted by that experience and decided she had to do something to help Afghan street children. Today, Marie, her husband Dennis, and three dozen American, French and Afghan friends have raised more than $650,000 through their nonprofit foundation to support Aschiana’s relief efforts for Afghanistan’s youngest victims.
Recently, on a gorgeous spring night in Washington, 200 Aschiana supporters gathered on the terrace of the German Residence as guests of German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth and his wife, Dr. Ulrike Scharioth, for Aschiana’s third annual Kite Soirée, which raised more than $132,000. Kite flying, banned by the Taliban, is a favorite pastime of Afghan children and thus the symbol of this Washington nonprofit.
That night, to everyone’s delight, Anita McBride, first lady Laura Bush’s chief of staff, announced a long-awaited $100,000 grant from USAID for Aschiana, which had just been approved that afternoon, thanks to help from the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council.
Aschiana (which means “the nest”) runs six inner-city centers in Kabul for 2,500 of the capital’s 60,000 street children, many of whom are orphans who beg in the streets and have little opportunity to attend school.
For these young Afghans, Aschiana provides a daily hot meal, a safe place to learn, and a nurturing atmosphere in which to recover from a young lifetime of war. They learn life skills, including land mine awareness, as well as vocational skills, and partake in health, art and recreational programs. Plus, there are three outreach programs for 3,000 more children in Kabul’s refugee camps and a program in Parwan that reintegrates child solders into normal society.
Laura Bush, who visited Aschiana’s main Kabul center in April 2005, has served as the group’s honorary chair for the past three years, including last year’s first Kite Soirée that was held at the French Residence under the patronage of departing French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte and his wife Marie-Cécile.
Since her emotional first visit to Aschiana, Marie Kux has been back twice and is “always struck by the children’s passion for learning, their desperate desire to attend school, and hope for a better life.”
