By Michelle Martin
Staff Writer

Nadia Salam wants to deliver a message to U.S. Catholics: Catholic Relief Services in Pakistan needs their help. And not just because of the fallout from Sept. 11.

“Pakistan is now hosting 2 million Afghan refugees,” said Salam, a finance manager and justice coordinator for CRS in Pakistan. “Two hundred thousand came since Sept. 11.”

The others arrived in Pakistan following 20 years of war and three years of drought, unable to feed themselves or their families and looking for help.

For a few weeks, the plight of the refugees appeared in American news reports, but as Americans’ attention has turned from the war on terrorism to the Olympics and other diversions, the refugees have once again faded into the background.

“I find that people here have very much less knowledge about the refugee crisis,” said Salam, who was on a three-day trip to raise awareness in the Chicago area and to thank donors to Catholic Relief Services, the agency founded by the U.S. bishops to help the poor and disadvantaged around the world. She arrived in the United States for a six-month temporary assignment in November.

In a soft tunic, trousers and head scarf, Salam had an exotic look. Born in Saudi Arabia and moving to Pakistan as a child with her family, Salam, 35, earned a master’s degree in economics at Quaid-E-Azam University in Pakistan. She worked for two years at a bank before joining CRS in 1995. “I always wanted to work with an organization that is working to develop the country, and working with the poorest of the poor,” she said.

Catholic Relief Services also wanted her; it had run an advertisement for a female finance specialist for two months before she applied. They wanted a woman, she said, to keep the office gender-balanced.

The relief agency has worked in Pakistan since 1954, she said, in the areas of health, microfinance, education, agriculture, emergency services and peace and justice. Emergency services to refugees have taken on more importance since Afghan nationals came looking for a haven over the last several years.

Salam fears that many Americans believe that all Afghans are by definition terrorists, and she wants the people who listen to her to learn differently.

“I want them to know about their miseries, their pains,” she said. “We are asking for help. We want them to share our burden.”

Last year in March, Salam visited the now-defunct Jalozai refugee camp and found miseries rivaling those of Job. Families arriving penniless and jobless in a foreign country, living by the thousands in crowded camps made up at first of thin plastic tents, with six or seven latrines for 75,000 people and eating dried breads intended for livestock. In the winter, dozens froze to death; in the summer, they perished from heatstroke. Every day, mothers deliver babies with no medical assistance.

The refugees at Jalozai have been moved to newer camps, with canvas tents and better facilities. But the new camps are far from populated areas in Afghanistan, making it impossible for those who stay there to get any work or sell any fabric or embroidery produced by the women in the camp.

While food distribution works better, CRS is still trying to find a way to reliably deliver food to disabled refugees, including those who have lost their legs to land mines and cannot make their way to the food lines.

“You just name the problem, and the problem is there,” Salam said.

The refugees’ dependence on CRS and other non-governmental organizations that operate the camps under the direction of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees creates a psychological burden, she said.

Indeed, many have already left to try to reclaim their lives in Afghanistan, with hope that a new government will turn the situation around. At the same time, others are still arriving at the refugee camps.

CRS plans to open two offices in Afghanistan this month, in Kabul and Kandahar, with an emphasis on providing help with agriculture, health, infrastructure development and education—especially the education of girls. The agency will continue to provide emergency assistance, in addition to the 900 metric tons of beans, wheat flour, vegetable oil and sugar and the 60,000 blankets already distributed.

Salam, whose family belongs to a sect that identifies itself as Muslim, but is not recognized by other Muslim groups, said she does not see anything strange about working for a U.S.-based Catholic organization to improve the lives of mostly poor Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“CRS, they are working with the poor, not preaching,” she said. “Preaching is not allowed in Pakistan. People look at the work, not who is doing the work. Poor people—they don’t care about Catholic or USA. We never find any difficulty.”