21 / 40
W
hen I meet her for coffee Dr Sarah
Fane, founder of the charity,
Afghan Connection, has just
come from a meeting at Lord’s
Cricket Ground to agree
arrangements for a one-day cricket
match later in the summer.The match, Marylebone Cricket
Club (MCC) vAfghanistan, would typically draw a modest
crowd; Fane wants to fill the stadium with 28,000 spectators.
Founding the Afghan Connection, as Fane did in 2002, was
not for the faint-hearted. She has worked tirelessly to raise
money and ensure it is spent well in the
war-ravaged country. She has done this in
the face of formidable hurdles, not least
Afghanistan’s conservative and male-
dominated culture.Though still a
relatively small charity, the Afghan
Connection funds schools, teachers and
sports opportunities, especially in rural
areas. So far, the charity has funded
construction of 46 schools, serving some
75,000 children.
Fane had looked set for a comfortable
life as an obstetrician in the Home
Counties. But her career veered onto
a new track when she spent three months
as a medical student in Pakistan’s Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa region, which borders
Afghanistan. She then returned to
the area as a doctor and worked from
a Mujahideen camp doing clinics for
refugees. In 2001, she travelled across
Afghanistan and worked at a mother and child clinic. It was
this visit that led her to set upAfghan Connection.
She started the charity to develop the desperately poor
medical facilities before switching to what she saw as an even
higher priority; schooling for children, particularly girls.
She says:‘The people inAfghanistan are incredibly hospitable
and resilient.When I first went I was just 24. Maybe I was
naïve, but what started as a small vacation project took over.’
Fane, now 54, has successfully navigated dealings with the
Taliban and picked her way throughAfghan suspicions of
outsiders, a deeply conservative culture and widespread
corruption. But she brushes aside any suggestions of heroism
on her part – she was held briefly by theTaliban, but she
explains that they were protecting her.
Schools do exist in the country but parents often won’t send
their children to them. Many have no buildings, so children
have to sit on the ground.They are often remote, with no
proper security and there may be nothing to prevent children
being gawped at by passers-by.This is significant in such a
traditional culture, as no self-respecting father would allow his
daughters to be looked at by strangers after puberty.
‘We rely on enlightened men to succeed,’ declares Fane.
‘People aren’t necessarily hostile to education for girls, but
they need to be convinced that it brings economic advantage.’
Fane counts herself lucky in her sponsors. It costs £35 to
educate one child for a year and she has had support from
the British Embassy in Kabul and the EU, and she works with
the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan.Also, the charitable
St. James’s Place Foundation recently donated £10,000.
She has also enjoyed 10 years’ support
from the MCC, the custodian of cricket’s
rules.WhenAfghan Connection builds
or repairs a school, it often lays a cricket
pitch too. It will lay its 100th pitch this
year.The work of her charity in
developing cricket and the rise of the
Afghan national team on the world stage
over the past two decades go hand in hand.
Fane says cricket is a force that binds the
nation.‘When you’re in the streets over
there and the national team is winning,
you see Afghans come together to
celebrate, proud to have heroes – for the
first time in years,’ she explains.
Still, it remains vital to keep up the
momentum. Fane says:‘Afghanistan is
more of a challenge for fundraisers than,
say, funding cancer research.
Understandably, people have their
conceptions about the country and you
can’t easily take donors out to see the children sitting in the
beautiful school that now exists thanks solely to their generosity.’
Fane comes across as single-minded, yet not as someone who
has achieved these remarkable things by bulldozing aside all
obstructions. Maybe that’s one reason why she succeeds in a
national culture that could easily have turned hostile on her.
Passion for her cause clearly lies at the heart of her work.
I ask what she plans to pass on to her own children.‘Not overly
much in terms of tangible assets,’ she says,‘but I have instilled
in my kids the belief that you must spend your life doing
something you are passionate about.’
Indeed, it turns out that while she has been at Lord’s
discussing the cricket match her son, Max, has decided to leave
his teaching job to co-launch a Glyndebourne-style opera
season in Florence called the New Generation Festival. Fane
has clearly passed on her carpe diem spirit.
afghanconnection.org
CHARITY
It costs £35 a year to
educate one child.
The St. James’s Place
Foundation recently
donated £10,000
THE INVESTOR
|
21