Brigadier Peter Stewart-Richardson

Brigadier Peter Stewart-Richardson is 80 next year and has dedicated his retirement to the needs of the people of Afghanistan. In the early 1990's he set up the trust the Maydan Margah Clinic, now a registered charity called Afghan Mother and Child Rescue (AMCR), and his commitment to the charity has led him to take financial and personal risks in order to oversee and ensure that his projects are implemented.

For the last 15 years Brigadier Peter has put his experience in the army towards peaceful and positive causes. Since the early 1990's he has worked to ensure that women and children are properly cared for by establishing the Maydan Margah Clinic, which has successfully motivated Afgans to build hospitals and emergency obstretric clinics around the country. The trust was directly responsible for building a 40 bed hospital at Chak-e-Wardak, an irrigation system at Namu and a mother and child health clinic at Rokka in the Panjshir Valley. It has also provided the Rokka clinic in Panjshir with solar powered lighting and a vaccine refrigerator, updated the delivery room and other facilities, and has set up hygiene lectures and training sessions, attended by 50 patients each week. The hospital now has an ambulance with three paid drivers and an operational maintenance programme. 20,000 children have been saved from mild childhood diseases through the vaccination programme that the clinic has provided. A team, trained by a Swedish committee, goes to a different village every week to administer the vaccines. The AMCR is hoping to extend its help to 40,000 people in Aqtipa who are in desperate need of medical help.

Peter's work also includes education and income generation schemes. He has helped provide education to 2,500 girls at the Bibi Miriam School at Talaqan. Peter has also started tailoring apprenticeships and village bakeries, which help war widows survive financially. The bakeries have been so successful that 17 other villages have requested bakeries to be built at their location.

Peter has been extremely active in fundraising schemes such as parachute jumping and direct lobbying and has led numerous missions, all very dangerous, to Afghanistan in order to ensure the projects are implemented. Today he is still actively taking risks and, at the age of 79, still ensures that the goods and services given are delivered safely.

"Brigadier Peter is and always has been the driving force behind this charity and without his steely determination and charismatic leadership, AMCR would never have existed."

Major Roddy Jones, Treasurer of AMCR

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