February 1, 2004 French NGO Aina provides support to independent media in the Afghan capital of Kabul. The organization's involvement in the cause began with helping the launch of such publications as Kabul Weekly, a weekly newspaper, and Malalai, a monthly magazine for women. It has since published a magazine for children and established training centers for video journalists and photojournalists. Journalists and other people in the media business come from around the world to support the nascent independent journalism in the country. When I recently went to Afghanistan for my work, I also offered my help to the volunteer activity. A total of 14 photojournalists in the making, aged 13 to 40, are receiving training in the photography section. They include five women who are trying to carve out a career as a photojournalist in the post-Taliban Afghanistan. I invited three of them to accompany me during my tour of the country to take pictures. During the tour, I gave them some advice on journalistic photographing and showed them some of the pictures of Afghan women I had taken, asking for their opinions. We had a lot of difficulty trying to communicate with each other in broken English. But photographs often spoke for themselves. We observed each other as we shot the same scenes. While discussing why we should photograph these scenes, I felt we were gaining deeper understanding of each other. These trainees produced some surprisingly good pictures. I felt closeness between the budding photographers and their objects, probably because they were both Afghans, and they sometimes pressed the shutter button at the perfect moment. Working with them was quite stimulating for me. I also helped organize an exhibition of their works on the last day of my one-month stay in the country. I spent a lot of time editing their photos to ensure they would reflect their individualities as much as possible. The trainees, meanwhile, managed to digitally process and print their photos, struggling with computers, which broke down frequently apparently because of the dust in Kabul. During the Taliban years, people in Afghanistan were banned from taking pictures. Displaying the joy of being able to take pictures freely, some male photographers worked through many nights to help realize the event. The exhibition turned out to be an enormous success. People in various areas interviewed the budding photojournalists. Their works attracted so much attention that the French Embassy in Kabul even proposed to produce and publish a collection. No longer trainees, they were ready to go out into the world. (Published in EMERGENCY NURSING, February 2004 issue)