From staff reports

HILLSBOROUGH — Ian Pounds, who worked in an orphanage in war-torn Afghanistan, will present a program titled “Start Again: Re-thinking Afghanistan from inside a Girls’ Orphanage,” at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the Orange County Main Public Library, 137 W. Margaret Lane.

Pounds recently returned from Kabul, where he lived and volunteered for nearly five months in Mehan Orphanage, one of three run by Afghan Children Education and Care Organization (AFCECO).

Isolated in a section of the city otherwise off-limits to Western workers, Pounds taught English, drama, photography and computer skills to 180 children. The story of his time there relates to Afghan life on many levels. He uses his skills as a former performance poet to weave poems by Rumi into the tale.

Pounds lived in a house full of girls and dared not stray outside the gates for fear of kidnapping and bombs. He had contact only with Afghans, studied the language and history, and talked daily with a man who was himself a refugee during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

For more background about Pounds and the AFCECO visit www.hopeforafghanchildren.org/learn-more/ian-pounds-speaking-tour/.

The program is free and open to the public.