FYI. Amineh


PLEASE JOIN AMERICANS FOR UNFPA AND SEATTLE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF
NURSING FOR

A RECEPTION
with Dr. Mojadidi, featured in Motherland Afghanistan

Thursday, April 24, 2008 6:00 - 8:00 pm

At the home of Monica & Dave Stephenson
1575 Magnolia Blvd West * Suggested donation $50.00

***

FILM SCREENINGS
MOTHERLAND AFGHANISTAN

Friday, April 25, 2008 6:30 pm & 8:45 pm

Northwest Film Forum 1515 12th Avenue at Pike
Tickets: $10.00

***

Registration Required. Please call 646.649.9114 or visit
www.americansforunfpa.org/events

AMERICANS FOR UNFPA builds moral, political and financial support within
the United States for the work of UNFPA. UNFPA, the United Nations
Population Fund, provides women's health care and promotes the rights of
women around the world.

In MOTHERLAND AFGHANISTAN, writer/director Sedika Mojadidi follows her father,
Dr. Qudrat Mojadidi, into the chaotic reality of Afghanistan’s crippled health
care system, where the maternal mortality rate is among the highest in the
world.

Dr. Mojadidi has practiced medicine within and outside of Afghanistan for the
past 40 years. Originally from Kabul, Afghanistan, he relocated to the United
States to finish his medical training in Jacksonville, Florida. In addition to
treating Afghan refugee women in Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1982, he founded
and managed the only free teaching hospital for Afghan women refugees in
Peshawar, Pakistan for ten years during the Soviet-Afghan war. In 2002 he was
nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his 20 years of work in Afghanistan. His
commitment to women’s health in displaced communities has also led him to
teach and work at Native American reservation hospitals in Arizona and Montana.




The film focuses on Dr. Mojadidi’s emergency treatment of three Afghan women:
Kakujan, who had received inadequate care from a midwife during a home birth;
Sitara, who had traveled far to receive treatment after prolonged obstructed
labor in her remote village; and Sharifa, who Dr. Mojadidi discovered was
pregnant with a second twin after the first baby had died.

Since filming ended, Dr. Mojadidi has continued his commitment to training
Afghan doctors, improving hospital conditions and saving women’s lives. Fresh
from training in Mazar-e Sharif in December 2006, he answered the following
questions for Independent Lens from Kabul.



Last we heard you and your wife, Dr. Nafisa Mojadidi, had returned to
Afghanistan in 2005 with the CURE International Hospital in Kabul. Is that where
your work is currently focused, and what has that experience been like?

Yes, I am currently directing the OB/GYN fellowship training program for CURE
International. We are just getting ready to finish training the first five
fellows next month, and we will start with the next group of five in February
2007. This last year and a half was the most productive work I have ever had the
opportunity to conduct. My work here will probably be finished by March, and two
of the trained fellows will be able to carry on with the CURE fellowship
program. Although I am very tired, I was willing to stay another year to
implement the same program at Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health (MOPH)
maternity hospital, but it seems nobody is interested, so we will be coming home
in March.

Nafisa is doing well. She takes care of the CURE outpatient clinic, and though
she isn’t always happy living in Kabul with the freezing cold and electricity
for only four hours every 48 hours, she has always been a huge force behind our
work.

How did you feel about being filmed?

I am glad Sedika made the film, though I could never tolerate the stress of
another one. The staff at the Rabia Balkhi and Shuhada hospitals are very
pleased with the film and happy to see that the truth is getting out.

Do you think health conditions are improving for Afghan women?

No. My opinion about U.S. work in the health sector in Afghanistan has not
changed. There is still a lot of waste.