FUNDRAISING FOR COLD HOMELESS AFGHANS

                                     FUNDRAISING FOR HOMELESS AFGHANS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted November 10,2021)

Fundraising is a common feature of Kenyans’ everyday lives. We fundraise for weddings, funerals, children’s education, people’s pressing health issues including related travels abroad.

But mostly Kenyans fundraise for one another. In Louise Paterson’s case, hers is for helping homeless and hungry Afghans.

Having worked for many years in that part of the world with several humanitarian aid services, Paterson is well-aware of the acute needs of the Afghan people.

Unable to simply stand by and watch millions of people experience famine, homelessness, and the fateful return of the Taliban, the owner of Tribal Gallery says what makes Afghan people’s needs that much more acute is the fact that ‘winter is coming’.

“Millions don’t even have blankets, yet winters in Afghanistan can be brutal,” the Scottish mother of one tells BDLife.

Vowing to send every penny of funds raised next Saturday night, November 13^th to needy Afghans, Paterson’s Tribal Gallery will host an Afghan Supper where guests will be introduced to a delicious selection of authentic Afghan foods prepared by Chef Habib Rahman from Kabul.

The meal itself will be a sit-down affair, so there will be a limited number of sympathizers to the Afghan cause. But their meal won’t come cheap. For Sh7000, there will be introduced to Burani Banjan, Kabuli Pulao, a Vegetarian/Vegan Pulao finished with the most delectably fresh Baklava, the thinly layered pastry desert filled with chopped nuts and honey.

The Burani Banjan is a kind of appetizer made with oven-baked aubergine, organic tomatoes, and fresh cilantro served with homemade yogurt drizzled with pomegranate pearls. It’s served with handmade bolanee (Afghan flatbread stuffed with mashed potato).

The main course (for meat eaters) is the Kabuli Pulao, an ethereal mix of lamb and rice, redolent with sweet, exotic spices.  The vegan Pulao replaces the lamb with vegetables infused with spices and dried fruits.

There will also be a silent auction that night which is bound to raise substantial funds for the Afghans cause. One donor gave four nights for four people in Lamu at the elegant boutique hotel, Bush Princess. Another donated two nights at the Olepangi Farm in Timau while the ‘celebrity barber’, Abbas Noori Abbood donated two stylish men’s haircuts. And several artists have donated works, including Ahmed Abushariaa, El Tayeb Dawelbeit, and Mariantoimetta Peru.

Finally, Tribal Gallery itself will be donating two handwoven rugs to the cause, one from Morocco, the other from Afghanistan. Practically all the carpets, artifacts, furniture, sculptures, and home décor that Paterson exhibits and sells in Tribal Gallery have been hand-selected by herself or her brother.

“My brother and I travel the globe looking for beautiful [hand-made] treasures. I literally have felt like a treasure hunter,” says the former nurse turned country director for the American Refugee Committee (ARC).

“I was country director as well as regional coordinator for both Pakistan and Afghanistan,” she adds. Her job mainly involved emergency response efforts to events like the massive earthquake that hit southeastern Pakistan and the instability in Afghanistan itself caused by the Taliban.

Prior to working for ARC, Paterson had several jobs with various United Nations Agencies. She’s worked for everyone from WHO and UNDP to UNICEF, often in the most unstable places in the world. Having chosen the career of nursing with the double motive of both service and the desire to travel. Paterson knew that her skills as a nurse would enable her to find work almost anywhere.

That is how she started off nursing, initially in Glasgow, but then went to work in Palestine, both to the West Bank and east Jerusalem where she nursed children paralyzed by snipers’ bullets. That tragic experience didn’t deter her from moving to other war-torn places, first to Somalia where her career path shifted slightly. She went to work in a military hospital but now she was in charge of other nurses. She did similar work when she moved to Pakistan, only now her role grew into emergency response, working all around that region including Kashmir.

Working tirelessly for ten years, assisting migrants, refugees and internally displaced people, Paterson finally decided in 2014 she was ready for a change. She moved to Kenya the same year, having been briefly based in Nairobi while working between Mogadishu and Mombasa.

Setting up Tribal Gallery , her travels have enabled her to display handmade home décor from all over the world including China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand as well as Japan, Morocco, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon, Sudan, and of course, Afghanistan.