Supporting AFCECO: Fighting oppression and terrorism through education

I’ve sponsored an orphanage for refugees from Afghanistan and I’m inviting supporters of this site to help keep the orphanage running and sponsor some of the children.

I was inspired to do this partly because I know there’s a better way to deal with terrorism and human rights than bombing countries; and partly because I was fortunate enough to meet a brave, young Afghan woman (to protect her safety, I won’t use her name), who spoke passionately about her country at V-DAY in New Orleans.

This woman grew up without knowing peace in her country. Her parents were both killed. Her life as a woman in Afghanistan is terribly circumscribed. Working for basic human rights for her sisters puts her in real danger.

She said if there is one thing we can do to help the women of Afghanistan and the country as a whole, it is to support the education of young people.

That’s what the orphanages run by the Afghanistan Child Education & Care Organization (AFCECO) do: they provide shelter and education for boys and girls, bringing them up in an atmosphere of mutual respect. In fact, the more I know about these orphanages, the more I realise that they are true models for action.

How to donate

My current project is to help sponsor more children. If you feel moved to donate, you may contribute any amount via this site, using the ChipIn widget you’ll see on the right side of each page. Alternatively, you can donate directly through AFCECO.

If you donate via this site, when you click the ChipIn button, you’ll be taken to my PayPal page. If you have a PayPal account, you can sign in to make your donation. If you don’t have a PayPal account or prefer not to use it, click the Continue link in the “Don’t have a PayPal account?” section. You’ll then be able to use a credit card to make the payment.

As this started as an individual effort to support an AFCECO orphanage, you’ll see my email address(es) on the donation form. You’ll receive receipts from both ChipIn and PayPal when you make a donation and I’ll post reports back from AFCECO about the children sponsored through this fund. I’ll be kicking in the proceeds from the advertisements on my site to the Orphanage Fund, too, as this is something I’m committed to.

If you’d prefer to make a direct contribution to AFCECO’s orphanages instead, you can sponsor an orphan, provide materials for the schools, or sponsor an entire orphanage yourself  through AFCECO. If you do so, please let me know by joining in the discussion at Hope for Afghan Children. This is a website  I am also building for AFCECO sponsors, where we can network, share fundraising ideas, and learn more about Afghanistan.

Why is this a geekgirl thing?

You may be wondering how supporting orphanages in Afghanistan fits with a site about computers and the Internet.

To me, it’s a natural connection. I’ve been writing about computers for 27 years and I came to the computing field with the goal of making technology as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, especially to women.

I’ve been working with community organisations, including women’s refuges, rape crisis centres and human rights orgs, for even longer than I’ve been a geek.

And I don’t see any sense in technology unless it makes the world a better place.

Helping build an orphanage on the other side of the world by clicking a button on a web page seems to fit pretty well.

Comments

[Jan]

I just found your site and your tutorial was very helpful. I have taught computers classes for 21 years but am very new at twitters, blogs, etc. I noticed that your website supports an orphanage and just thought you may be interested in checking out my website which links to an organization I recently got involved with. We also support an orphanage. It is a unique home business, unlike others. We all shop online at over 1200 stores now, receive small rebates which slowly create extra income for us, as well as contributes to the many non-profits that our organization supports. You may want to take a look. It is free to join. No selling, no investment. Take a look to see if it would benefit your cause. It is helping a lot of organizations like yours. I will be happy to tell you more if you are interested.

Sincerely,
Jan Alderman
North Carolina

[J. Iyer]

I was browsing for a simple tutorial for introducing databases to my students and I found your site extremely informative,relevant with suitable and simplistic examples.

[Vanessa]

Hello Geekgirl!! I have an issue that was not on your site! I downloaded msn messenger last night to my computer and I closed the window but this morning I could not find it anywhere, I even tried to download it again and it does not work.

Thanks, Vanessa

[navathe]

i found your article on slipstreaming very helpful.nice to know that you are involved in activities such as rawa.
keep up the good work
nawathe
techtricks.x10hosting.com

[Mary Lindsey]

Question: How would you creat a drop down list option for a Word toolbar.

Toolbar
File
Open

as opposed to

Toolbar | File | Open

Thanks!

[Jennifer]

Hello Rose!

I've been trying to figure this out for a while now, and can't seem to find anything online to answer this for me!

I am wondering how I can move the contents of multiple folders (they are hundreds of tiff files, all in their own folder; these folders are all then contained in one main folder)

I realize I can open each and every folder, cut the contents and paste into one main folder, but this will take hours. Is there any way around this?

Any assistance is appreciated!

Thank you!

Jennifer

[Martin]

From the URL I put in the Author URL, you explain how to network, but you require to be connected to the internet to create this LAN. Could you explain to me how to network computers without being connected to the internet?

E-mail me please :)

[Jenny]

Hi Rose, I have a question about customised toolbars. I have set up some templates with customised style toolbars for a couple of different clients and they work brilliantly. There's just one problem, sometimes when they open up a file based on the template the toolbar does not appear, nor can they find it through the <Customize> <Toolbar> menu. The only way to get it back is to go through 'Organizer' which is slightly complicated for some users. Have you ever had this happen, and if so do you know why. Many thanks any thoughts/feedback/instructions would be appreciated. Jenny

[Wayne]

I read your post on installing a printer on a wireless network and would like to know if there's something I can do if I don't have the Windowa XP CD.
Thanks,
Wayne

[BryanL]

We had "lost" part of the Word toolbar, (new, open etc). Experts reckoned ActiveX problems, as it followed an update. After 3 hours of fruitless scans, downloads, etc, a second search brought your page to view. One click, and all was sorted.

Many thanks,

Bryan

[Rose Vines]

HI Bryan,

I'm glad I could be of help. Thanks for letting me know.

Rose

[Saladin]

Hi Rose,
I am an internet security student & via Google came upon your site regarding Registry backup.
Your advice is both succinct, informative and easily understood. I salute you.

I intend to return again & will contribute to your cause in due course.

Saladin

[Dave Carlton]

I worked with the 82nd in Afghanistan in OEF VIII. the Afghan are a proud people. I am out of work now but when I get on my feet again I will help out. I talked with Afghan men who worked at Bagram. Like all men they want peace. they did not like the Russians or the Taliban. Strange twist - stop heroin use and the Taliban lose their funding but it hurts the farmers who survive on the income of growing poppies. No easy answers except we must help the children.

[David Solomon]

I cut and paste a folder on to my hard drive from an external drive. I had an existing folder with the same name and I was prompted if I want to merge the two folders and I said yes. It replaced the exiting folder with the new folder. When I assumed (wrongfully) it will combine the contents of the two folders. I had photos in both folders. When I opened all the photos of the older folder were gone and I had the folder from external hard drive instead.

Is it a form of deleting? If so can I use your explained method to restore them. If not I need your help. I will be grateful for your help.

Great cause, Afghan people are the world's most resiliant people. Afghanistan is the part of original historical Caucasia (meaning Lap of Asia). Most of us owe our heritage to this land.

[Rose Vines]

Hi David,
The folder contents should have been merged. If the files within the two folders had the same names, the contents would be overwritten, although you should have seen a warning prompt about overwriting a file.

Unfortunately, if you've overwritten the old files with the new ones, there's a good chance you've lost the old ones. Overwriting is much worse than deleting: when you delete a file, it's usually not difficult to undelete it. When you overwrite a file, the new file obliterates the old one, making it far less likely that you'll be able to recover the original.

However, if you still have a copy of the new files on your external drive, you could try to see whether you can recover the originals using Previous Versions:

1. Right-click the file and select Properties.
2. Click the Previous Versions tab.
3. Look to see if there's a previous version of the file available from before you performed the merge/copy operation.

You could also try a data recovery program to try to locate the old versions.

How did this happen? My guess is you may have responded incorrectly to the Copy/Merge prompt. I find that particular dialog box in Vista and WIndows 7 to be very badly designed. I think the design leads to many errors on the part of users.

Cheers,

Rose

[David Solomon]

Rose,
Thank you for such a detailed response. Unfortunately I could not recover the files. I tried Uneraser and the Previous Version tab option is not available. I just bought this computer. I have learned a big lesson. Thank you so much for your help. What a great site and blog!!!!!!
I will recommend to all my friends and familly.

[Student]

The google ads block the center of you page, but your words are not wrapped around it. Only way to get to the text is to copy and paste into notepad.

[Robert]

Hello!
Changed XP to 98se on my Ibm thinkpad 600e. Goes way better! Actually have some HDD space left over! (whole install was sub 200 Meg!)

Found " http://www.geekgirls.com/windows_reinstall_98.htm "

Very wise advice. I suffer from clutter and hypthinking so I fail to finish what I start and usually have other starts on the go. BUT the check list makes it easy! It's so simple.

any way, THANKS!!! for the info. (am I thanking the right person??)

question: where are all the 98se fans? or clubs? :)

Awesome!

Robert.

[Rose Vines]

Hi "Student",

I'm aware of the problem with the Google ads on the Geekgirl's website. It only occurs, as far as I know, in Chrome and Safari.

I'm currently in the process of migrating my site to WordPress. That should eliminate the problem entirely. I just have to find enough time to complete the process.

Thanks for contacting me.

- Rose

[Rose Vines]

Glad you found the Win 98 SE information useful, Robert. It really was a very good operating system. (I see that the links to Microsoft support sites no longer work - something I'll rectify when I move my site to its new host.)

Cheers,

Rose