Gail Latouche- In Her own words

I found this story on an internet site. I thought you might like to meet this Canadian woman and so I have transferred her story exactly as she wrote it below.












Government of Canada

Gail Latouche Deputy Director

January 2009 – January 2010 - KPRT

Today I depart Kandahar with mixed emotions. I am very much looking forward to reuniting with my family after having been away for one year. However, I will truly miss all the wonderful Afghans and colleagues I worked so closely with while deployed in Kandahar as part of the Provincial Reconstruction Team.



As Deputy Director for the Correctional Services Canada (CSC) team at the PRT, I was one of four team members who had the responsibility to advise, mentor and train Afghan correctional staff at Sarpoza prison. This task was not without challenges. The language, culture, lack of literacy, security and logistics, were a few of the barriers that stood between us and those who so eagerly wanted to learn. Those I trained and mentored had an insatiable hunger to learn and improve the environment in which they worked. This was the rule and not the exception. When I arrived I was unsure how I would be received, but I soon learned that I had nothing to worry about. Sarpoza staff, men and women alike, opened their hearts and their minds to what they could learn. I too learned a lot from them in kind. The Afghans are a very sociable, generous and sincere people.



In addition to mentoring while at Sarpoza several days a week, I had the pleasure of teaching sixteen senior managers during an Executive Leadership course. I was in awe of how much they gave back in class and shared with me their own knowledge, challenges and fears. Often, when I would return to the prison, several class participants would quote what they learned in class and would explain how the lesson applied to their work that day.



My greatest personal accomplishment, while at the KPRT, was the training of female correctional officers. Even through the language barrier we connected as women. As correctional staff we connected on a professional level. I was very proud of their skills and they were so pleased to have been finally taught the same course as their male counterparts. It is difficult to describe the emotion the women demonstrated in the classroom when they listened to various lessons on law, conflict resolution and manipulation by inmates. Their faces were beaming; they left the class room ten feet tall, head held high, shoulders back, confident, proud and eager to apply their new knowledge. And they did. Upon returning to subsequent classes, the women shared many examples of how they applied their skills and how well they worked. One woman actually said, "I was blind, but now I can see". I also noticed a change in the inmates as the months progressed. Where in the past they would be confrontational or complain about the staff, now they didn't. The staff and inmates on the women's ward seemed to be more at peace. I witnessed on a daily basis the resilience of all of these people and how much they all wanted their country back.



I will sincerely miss working in Afghanistan, and though I will miss the friends I have made, I will always have what I learned from the experience. I am honoured to have been a small part of corrections in Kandahar. There is still work to be done, there is no doubt, but as long as we are there, they too are grateful for our contributions and commitment.



Gail Latouche

Deputy Director

January 2009 – January 2010

KPRT