#camp phoenix

Hi, River has 4 Siblings; 3 Sisters: Rain, Liberty and Summer Phoenix, and Brother Joaquin Phoenix, who is now playing the Joker, and is a terrific actor. Rain is a Musician. All siblings are former child actors.

They are all vegan and carry on River’s work at his charity River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding. :)

From Rhett Mutschke,  Head Administrator for Camp Phoenix:

Hello,

My name is Rhett Mutschke this years Head Administrator for Camp Phoenix, and I'm emailing you on behalf of the British Columbia Youth Parliament, to hopefully get in contact and spread the word about our project.

Our organization, BCYP, is a youth run non-profit charity organization, dedicated to serving the youth of BC through various initiatives and projects, our largest being our annual summer camp.Camp Phoenix aims to help children who normally would not be able to attend summer camps for social or financial reasons, have the same opportunities for a fun and rewarding summer camp experience, a place for kids to be kids.

By Rod Nordland and Jawad Sukhanyar, NY Times, Jan. 10, 2016

CAMP PHOENIX, Afghanistan--The bridges that span the Kabul River in the heart of this capital city have long harbored their own special hell. For several years, hundreds of heroin addicts lived beneath the bridges, on river banks carpeted with used needles that crunched underfoot--as hollow as the countless grant proposals that never produced solutions.

When reports surfaced in late 2014 that the drug camps had become a macabre public eyesore--with Kabul residents lining the railings above to watch the addicts--President Ashraf Ghani’s government said the authorities would relocate the bridge denizens to a sprawling former military base that was built by the United States in 2003 but was handed over to the government when American troops pulled out in 2014. It took more than a year to happen, but over the past two weeks, the government has been making good on its promise, clearing out the riverbanks under the bridges and moving addicts, many of them homeless, into compulsory rehabilitation in the base, Camp Phoenix, on the eastern outskirts of the city. Once the biggest military base in a capital full of them, Camp Phoenix has become Afghanistan’s biggest drug treatment center.

Even the people who run the center are quick to admit that the facility is only a small step in addressing a growing drug crisis. And critics of the effort say that all the program does is hide the country’s huge addiction problem safely out of sight behind this camp’s 10-foot-high walls.

Afghanistan is the world’s biggest opium producer, and there is evidence that the country’s drug problem is worse than government officials acknowledge, fueled by cheap and easily available heroin. According to a report last month by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 12.6 percent of Afghan adults are drug users, double the world rate, and estimates say the treatment centers are reaching only 10 percent of heroin and opium users.

The issue of H.I.V. infection is also sensitive here.

The connection between drug use under the Kabul bridges to H.I.V. has become a well-reported aspect of the campaign. On Jan. 2, Dr. Ferozuddin Feroz, the minister of health, was leading a nighttime roundup when he was attacked under a bridge by someone wielding a dirty syringe. The ministry’s public relations director, Mohammad Ismail Kawusi, suggested it was a planned attack by drug dealers unhappy with the cleanup operation.

Mr. Kawusi insisted that there was no truth to Afghan news reports that Dr. Feroz was being treated in India for H.I.V. infection from the attack, and said the minister had gone to India only to watch the Afghan national football team play.

So far, 600 people have been housed in what the government is officially calling the Treatment and Rehabilitation Center, although everyone still uses the old name, which was chosen back when it was the center of efforts to train the Afghan security forces, ostensibly bringing them back from the ashes of the Taliban era. The president’s wife, Rula Ghani, has proposed renaming it Camp Hope, but so far that has not happened.

Most of the former bridge dwellers have arrived peacefully, attracted by the prospect of warm barracks, three meals a day and some medical treatment. Plus, the police had driven the drug dealers away from the riverbanks, so they were out of suppliers.

The new facility occupies a small corner of the sprawling old base, which once housed soldiers from the United States and other NATO countries, as well as civilian defense contractors. The grid of paved roads crossed by walkways of crushed stone is still intact, and here and there that uniquely American contribution to base management is still in view: signs that read, “Speed Limit, 3 MPH (5 KPH).”

Only a few vehicles ply the base roads now, and most of the dozens of buildings are empty, except in the area now taken over by the treatment center. Buildings there are spotless, but they still have the atmosphere of a squatter’s camp, of people occupying someone else’s buildings.

An old “D-FAC,” military slang for “dining facility,” has been converted into housing, but the Afghan authorities have had to build their own kitchens. When the Americans left, they took or sold off every pot, deep fryer, oven and table.

One resident, Mujtaba, 25, from Ghazni, said he had been addicted to heroin for a decade, since his father abandoned the family. He said he was happy to be off the river banks, and praised the food and medical care here. His biggest complaint was boredom.

“I miss the outside a lot because there is nothing to do here--no TV, not even cards to play with,” he said. Visitors are forbidden, to make sure drugs are not smuggled in, and the old base’s fortresslike walls have cut the residents off from the rest of the city.

At its peak, Camp Phoenix housed an estimated 10,000 soldiers and military contractors. The then-bustling base never lacked for television sets, especially large screens, and it had plenty of gyms and recreation units. But all of that is long gone. Alongside the camp, on Jalalabad Road, hundreds of running machines are stacked high, a treadmill graveyard, looking for buyers.

Camp Phoenix once had the dubious distinction of being Kabul’s most frequently attacked target by Taliban suicide bombers, but none ever succeeded in getting past the perimeter. Now, a single flimsy metal entrance gate is all that remains of the once-formidable defenses.

Few of the heroin users expressed much hope that they would be able to avoid relapsing.

After a maximum stay of 180 days, the residents will be released, said Dr. Wakil Qayomi, the center’s deputy director.

Riv | Message of the day: 

Doing Good together, as ‘Camp Phoenix’.