by Bianca Senatore
For more than thirty years he chose to remain in Afghanistan while the country went through wars, changes of regime and profound social transformations, and he never gave up, not even in the face of challenges that seem impossible. We are talking about Alberto Cairo, physiotherapist of the International Red Cross, who has made rehabilitation a battle for rights and disability a matter of dignity and citizenship. In recent days Afghanistan has reappeared a little in international media and we took the opportunity to tell the story of the country through the eyes of someone who, by now, knows it very well. Through the words of Alberto Cairo, therefore, we offer a narrative that spans more than three decades of history and shows how, even in the most difficult contexts, solidarity can become a powerful instrument of change.
Let’s start from the beginning. How did you end up in Afghanistan, based on your previous experiences?
I studied law, so I had in mind a completely different path. But I liked physiotherapy, I had discovered it by chance doing volunteer work in Turin at the Cottolengo, an institution that gathers people with disabilities, but above all poor and somewhat abandoned people. I had gone there out of curiosity following a friend and I had discovered that there was something called physiotherapy. I considered it something simply linked to the sports field and I was not very interested in that. Instead I discovered that, with small adjustments made according to certain criteria, you can help a person in physical difficulty and I really liked this thing.
So I started to become interested in it. In the meantime I continued my studies, I finished them and I worked a bit, but at a certain point I asked myself: «Do I really want to become a lawyer for my whole life?». It also seemed a bit boring and I thought: «I like travelling. If I became a physiotherapist, I could travel, work a few years in poor countries, do some volunteering, which is something I have always been interested in, and then decide what to do. If it doesn’t work out, I can always go back to legal work». So I did that and I fell in love with physiotherapy one hundred per cent.
Then I left for Sudan, where I worked for two and a half years. It was a training ground, because I learned to work in difficult places, where there are not all the resources that exist here in Europe and in Italy. You have to get busy, you have to think about how to make up for what is missing. I stayed there, I would have liked to stay, but there was a war and we were evacuated. I returned to Italy and I asked myself: «What do I do now?». I sent several applications, but there was not much. Until I met the International Red Cross. I sent a letter – there were no emails – and they told me: «If you want there is this position in Kenya». Then it was not Kenya, it was Afghanistan.
I arrived in Afghanistan not because I had chosen it. I was fine with any place: I wanted to do this volunteer work and then I would see. There I fell in love with the country and especially with the work. There was so much to do. It was difficult: I had never seen war wounded, I had never seen mine injuries. I stayed and the work engaged me more and more. From the hospital where I worked I moved to the rehabilitation centre and I was asked to become project leader. I stayed for thirty years: from 1992 to 2022 I held this role. Even today I continue to do it as a volunteer. I help the Red Cross without being an official member anymore and, at the same time, I work for Nove – Nove is Caring Humans – a small organization working in the field of women. For me it is something new, because I have always worked as a physiotherapist and as a project leader. Certainly we also worked for women with disabilities, who represented a large part of our work, but here the organization operates mainly for women.
I also added the component of disability, which is my specialty and something I care a lot about, given the needs that exist. So now Nove works for women, especially for orphan children, for very poor women in great difficulty and for people with disabilities. In particular, in addition to physical rehabilitation, we deal with microloans and social reintegration. Then there is the sports component, which has become something with wonderful results. It is fun and, I must say, also selfishly for me it is very beautiful. For my whole life I have done useful things, but also a bit painful ones: prostheses at the beginning are painful, physiotherapy can be. For the first time I offer something that is only enjoyment.
Many things have changed: at the beginning we only worked for war wounded, then we opened up to everyone; first only in periods of calm, then also under bombs; then we added social reintegration and not only physical rehabilitation. You have to try and, above all, give people with disabilities the possibility to decide for themselves, to realise their own potential, because there is enormous potential. Why only I, who have legs, can do what I want and another person, just because they have a physical problem, cannot? This is something that has always struck me: prejudices, often involuntary. People always said: «Poor thing». Compassion is fine, but a person with a disability has the same rights as I do. This is a battle I have fought and that still needs to be fought, because it is not something to be taken for granted.
Let’s take a step back. You were in Afghanistan for 36 years and you have seen many changes and many regimes. How has the country changed from when you arrived to today?
I have seen five regimes. The country has changed because, first of all, the world changes. Technologies and communications have changed everything. In 1996, when the Taliban first arrived, they closed televisions and that alone was enough to block information. Now there are social media and the internet. Unless the internet is completely shut down, which is much more difficult. People know more. When I arrived in 1990 it was a country that knew the outside world only through a few tourists. Today they have had the opportunity to see foreigners in large numbers. The countryside is much more backward, the cities much more advanced. Then there are forty years of war that have turned society upside down.
Let’s take women: before, a woman was never abandoned. If the husband died or something happened, the extended family took care of her. It was a matter of honour. Today there are many women who live alone, are heads of household and have to support their children with very little help. Society has changed, the way of seeing things has changed and also the family structure. Every regime has brought laws and situations that have radically changed the country. Afghanistan today has a certain modernity, but it still has to fight against very rigid traditions. It is like going from primary school straight to university, skipping middle and high school. The current regime is trying to take the country back one hundred years, imposing absolutely retrograde rules.
Tell us about the country in these periods. You told us that the situation of women has worsened a lot. In recent days, by the way, there have also been protests harshly repressed.
Being a woman has never been easy in Afghanistan. During the communist period there was a certain liberation of women, but with enormous contrasts: in the cities there was openness, in the countryside there was not. Women have always been second-class citizens. In every crisis, everywhere in the world, the most vulnerable categories suffer the most: women, people with disabilities and the elderly. Between 2001 and 2021, with the intervention of the Western coalition, women were able to go to school, enter Parliament and the government. It was a step forward, but always in conflict with a very conservative tradition. The university was full of girls and finding educated women was quite easy. With the return of the Taliban in 2021, twenty years of openness were cancelled. With a series of edicts they targeted everyone, including men, but for women the bans are suffocating. They can only go to school up to sixth grade. They cannot travel alone beyond a certain distance without a male relative. They cannot go to offices without being accompanied. They cannot interfere, speak, make themselves heard. They cannot enter parks.
These are absurd measures that tend to make women disappear from public life. Recently in Herat a very strict governor had a group of girls arrested who were wearing the veil but did not have their faces covered. Families protested, but the Taliban responded by shooting. It seems that two women and a child were killed. There is an absolute ban on criticising the government. The whole population suffers, but especially women. In the long run they will have to understand that this cannot continue. They are giving up half of the country’s workforce and an enormous potential. Women, if they study and have the chance to learn, can do anything. An educated woman is a resource. In this way there will no longer be doctors, nurses, midwives. It is a situation that somehow will have to change, but at the moment it is really very difficult for the whole society and in a monstrous way for women.
Let’s go back to your work. Over the years you have introduced major changes, often fighting against the rigidity of the International Red Cross. Tell us about this path.
When I arrived, of course, I accepted the rules. One of the first was that we only worked for war wounded. Moreover, as soon as there were clashes in the city, rehabilitation centers closed. At first I accepted it, but I understood that we could not continue like this. In 1994 fighting was daily and people queued up. If you need a prosthesis or yours is broken, it completely changes your life: you cannot work and there is also an issue of dignity. We asked to continue working even in difficult moments. When there was bombing we closed, but as soon as possible we reopened.
At first it was difficult and we almost had to lie: officially we were closed, in reality we worked behind closed doors. The second change was opening up to everyone. In front of the centres also came people with disabilities due to illness, road accidents or congenital problems, but they were rejected because they were not war wounded. It was real discrimination. We fought and showed with statistics that every morning, out of fifty people, only fifteen or twenty were war wounded.
From there the work multiplied tenfold. It was a major change and absolutely necessary. Then we realised that, after receiving a prosthesis or a wheelchair, patients asked us: «And now what will happen to me?». Afghan society does not reject people with disabilities, but it does not offer them opportunities. So we decided to deal with social reintegration ourselves. The Red Cross initially did not want this, because it was no longer emergency but development. I proposed finding private funding and we started. We created home schools, encouraged school attendance, started vocational courses and microloans.
Then came the policy of positive discrimination: hiring people with disabilities. Today over 95% of the staff of the Red Cross rehabilitation centers in Afghanistan are people with disabilities. When a patient arrives, they find a doorman without an arm, a person in a wheelchair at reception, a physiotherapist without a leg. This gives hope: if they made it, maybe I can too. The final goal is to give a person back a dignified place in society. It is one of the reasons why I stayed in Afghanistan: it gives you a sense of fullness and the feeling of having made the world a little fairer.
And then you moved on to sport.
Yes. Already in 2009-2010 they were asking me to do something also for leisure time. At first I thought it was excessive. Afghanistan still had so many needs that sport seemed secondary to me. I was wrong. We started with football, but not everyone could play it. Wheelchair basketball was very difficult to organise: wheelchairs were too expensive, there were no courts and there were no instructors. Then some fortunate things happened. A British organisation started selling sports wheelchairs for 250 dollars instead of 4-5 thousand euros. We found funds to fix some courts and an American volunteer in a wheelchair offered to teach. We started and it was a revelation. It is pure fun, physical rehabilitation and social reintegration. The boys feel more confident, they go back to school, learn a profession, apply for jobs. Some have become so muscular that in winter they walk around in tight T-shirts to show their muscles. I find it beautiful, because they are no longer ashamed of their bodies.
Does this also apply to women?
Absolutely yes. I remember a mother who was unsure whether to send her daughter, a girl with polio who walked with crutches. After a few months she told us: «My daughter has completely changed. Before she was unhappy and restless, now she spends her days on the phone with her teammates, she wants to go to school». It works for everyone. Now for women it is a bit more difficult, because the Taliban consider women’s sport harmful and immoral. We still have almost 300 girls playing basketball, but they can only do it in places where there are indoor gyms. Where there are only outdoor courts they cannot play, because they would be seen. One of the things we are trying to do is find funding to build gyms. They also become places of aggregation. We are doing this in particular with Nove, trying to raise funds to work together for women and for people with disabilities, especially for women with disabilities. With more difficulty, but it works.