The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

54 MARCH 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL FINAL STOP: U.S. COMMUNITIES Global Network Helping Locally Employed Staff to Safety Lana Surface and Michelle Kevern August 2021. Silence. The WhatsApp group of Americans and former locally employed (LE) staff who had worked in the Kabul public affairs section (PAS) in 2019 and 2020 was rarely quiet. Created during the pandemic, it was meant to provide connec- tion during a year of isolation as officers and family member employees from Kabul, and around the world, found themselves back in Washington, D.C., and when many of our LE colleagues were also arriving in the U.S. on their Special Immigrant Visas. But as we watched the news of Herat and Kandahar falling, our group was silent. We had no words of comfort for our Afghan friends; we had no words of comfort for ourselves. Once evacuation was announced, the shared silence quickly turned into shared action. While our Afghan LE colleagues in Washington provided updates from contacts in Kabul, American officers and family members mobilized former public affairs staff. Within days, the group grew to 43 U.S. direct-hire members who worked in Kabul between 2017 and 2021. Recognizing that those currently assigned to Kabul had matters on the ground to focus on, our PAS group launched a grassroots effort to track LE staff and their families through the stages of evacuation and begin preparations for their arrival in the U.S., all while submit- ting hundreds of referrals for grantees, Lincoln Learning Center staff, U.S. government programs alumni, and so on. Because chaos surrounded Hamid Karzai International Air- port, former PAS LE staff suggested the State Department make a video cautioning Afghans not to go to the airport without receiving direct communication for evacuation. Soon, in conjunction with Global Public Affairs, former PAS officers were drafting a script and LE staff were translating. While officers joined task forces and headed to overseas lily pads and domestic bases, the PAS group established an informal network across evacuation points to track PAS LE staff (and four protocol LE staff), pass along mes- sages of encouragement, and provide welfare checks, including getting medical attention for the wife of a colleague giving birth at Ramstein Air Base. The PAS teammaximized our good offices to expand the information flow beyond those who served in Kabul, to include A-100 classmates and friends across the department. With more than 30 PAS Afghan staff and their families evacu- ating to the United States, tracking our team along their journey and trying to prepare for their arrival was no small feat. In addi- tion to collecting donated items, we recognized the importance of economically empowering our colleagues as they settled in the U.S. One PAS family member turned her garage into a stag- ing area for donations, while others supported our fundraising effort, resulting in more than $22,000 raised to purchase gift cards for each of our LE staff as they exited the transit bases. Now that our LE colleagues have arrived in the United States, the PAS group has shifted focus to support them in review- ing résumés and cover letters, searching for jobs and housing, finding furniture and winter clothing, and including our Afghan friends in family meals for the holidays. Those who served in Afghanistan or volunteered to assist with the evacuation efforts will not soon forget how they felt during the evacuation of our Afghan allies. Our feelings are complicated and difficult to express. For the Kabul PAS officers and family members who came together, however, united by shared sense of duty toward our Afghan staff, the hope and connection we felt as we worked to support our Afghan colleagues will not be forgotten. Many of us never served together, others haven’t seen each other in years, but the effects of our shared grassroots effort will be long-lasting. Lana Surface is a first-tour Foreign Service officer, currently serving at U.S. Embassy Cairo. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, she served in public affairs positions in Kabul and Muscat as an eligible family member. Michelle Kevern joined the Foreign Service in 2010 and is currently serving as spokesperson at U.S. Embassy Kuala Lumpur. She served as deputy spokesperson in Kabul from 2018 to 2019. Settling Newly Arrived Families MARYLAND Bill Grant Once a week, I lug overstuffed couches and cabinets that used to grace suburban homes into apartments in Riverdale and Landover, Maryland. My wife and I volunteer with Homes Not Borders, a small nongovernmental organization whose niche is to collect furniture donations and then set up apartments in the Washington, D.C., area for newly arriving Afghans, includ- ing Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) recipients.