Prince
VOA News
Rahimgul Sarwan
May 5, 2016
KABUL—For half a dozen years until his death last month, American musician and pop star Prince privately sent thousands of dollars to support Afghan orphans, a humanitarian organization in Afghanistan told VOA.
The pop star helped Kabul-based PARSA, an international aid organization that works with orphans and the disabled in Afghanistan, rebuild a training center for orphan boy and girl scouts in Kabul.
“We received a check for $15,000,” Marine Gustavson, executive director of PARSA, told VOA in Kabul. “It created for my staff a place to bring the kids together, a place to have a five-day workshop where the scoutmasters can stay and can do camp activities and works.”
Because of Prince’s donation, the number of children in the PARSA scouting program rose from 30 to about 2,000.
“He was instrumental,” Gustavson said. “He donated to something we needed.”
“He continued to donate to the Afghan scout program until the end of his life,” she said, adding that Prince donated $6,000 a year after his initial gifts.
The late pop star, however kept his philanthropy a top secret.
“Because of the kind of man he was, he did not want people to know about his philanthropy,” Gustavson said. “It was his secret. I just wanted to tell people to honor him. It is a side of him that most people do not know.
“I think it was special to him, and it was outside of the public domain.”
Unknown to youths
The young scouts who benefited from Prince’s largesse were equally ignorant of his identity.
“It is a rock star group,” one of the girl scouts told VOA. “I do not know his name.”
The history of scouting in Afghanistan goes back to 1931, under the founding leadership of King Nadir Khan. The program, however, diminished into nonexistence after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s and the emergence of the militant Taliban into power.
According to PARSA, the organization’s scouting program is designed to empower Afghan children and steer them away from the lure of extremist groups. The program currently has over 1,800 registered youths across 14 provinces.
“When he was alive, we did not know about the assistance he had provided,” said Kamaal Sadat, Afghanistan’s deputy minister for youth affairs. “We came to know about it after he passed away. We are saddened by his death. We are thankful to him. Be there more people like him in the world.”
VOA’s Noor Zahid contributed to this report from Washington.
Dr Hafiz Sahar of Afghanistan helped train the best African American journalist in the US, Minneapolis Minnesota in late 70’s during the formative career of prince the music super star.
He instilled unparalleled good well and mutual respects among all ethnic groups in the state of Minnesota which turned as a model and inspiration all across the US.
The “Insight News” of Minnesota, mostly because of his efforts, is today considered the best community empowering news paper in the US today.
Thanks for the great help of Dr Hafiz Sahar of Afghanistan for empowering and giving dignity to all ethnic groups of the United Stayes of America.
Please check out all the fact of his contribution to the state of Minnesota in late 1970’s.
Dr Sahar of Afghsnistan trained newspapers editors, late 79’s, in the US and helped instill, badly needed, self-respect and the confidence in their sensitive positions as journalists to empower all the communities across the US and nourish mutual respect amongst all, ethnic and religious groups.
LET US HONOR AND INSPIRE RESPECT AND CIVILIZED BEHAVIOR TO ALL OUR PEOPLE; IRRESPECTIVE OF RELIGIOUS OR ETHNIC AFFILIATIONS.
Dr Hafiz SAHAR of Afghanistan
was also the top journalist and the editor of the largest national premier government daily news paper, “ISLAH”, which was published every early morning in Pashtoa and Farsi official languages of Afghanistan in Kabul City during the reign of Mohammad Zahir Shah of Afghanistan in early 1970’s.
Dr Sahar was asked by the top government advisors to oversee and publish the launching of a major government-sponsored national magazine that was financed exclusively by the government of Afghanistan at that time. Dr Sahar was appointed as its chief editor.
In its first publication, Dr Sahar wrote the following editorial essay to honor the great people of of Afghanistan: under the guidance of Almighty Allah (GOD); the unity of the sacred land the help of the King and “Ahlamahs” (religious Scholars and leaders), of Afghanistan.
He wrote, in the first editorial essay of the new magazine under the title of
“OUR GREAT ASSET OF AFGHANISTAN”,
the following general statements.
THE GREAT GOD-GIVEN ASSETS OF AFGHANISTAN:
– it is not in our beautiful snow-covered mountains and beautiful valleys across the land and its surroundings.
– it is not in our most abundant mineral resources; God-Given all over the country and its surroundings.
– it is not hidden in our great and glowing historical heritage of Afghanistan.
– It is not in our country’s best strategic location on the face of the earth.
OUR PRECIOUS ASSET IS OUR GREAT PEOPLE OF AFGHANISTAN- AL ACROSS THE LAND.
The new magazine was launched in around 1971.
*****
* Brothers and sisters !
Today we are all witnessing that, that great asset of Afghanistan is being cowardly humiliated under the murderous threat of the international criminal
THUGS AND THUG-MARS.
VOICE YOUR CONCERNS AS WELL
AND
STOP THE INVADERS !