Winners from the Social Enterprise Challenge in Afghanistan

Winners from the Social Enterprise Challenge in Afghanistan

Winners from the Social Enterprise Challenge in Afghanistan

At British Council Afghanistan's Social Enterprise Challenge, Paul Smith discovers that a country's prosperity shouldn't always be measured in economic terms, but rather by the vision and hope of its young people.

Photo: U.S Embassy Kabul Afghanistan, Creative Commons, Flickr.

Afghan National Institute of Music.

Photo: U.S Embassy Kabul Afghanistan, Creative Commons, Flickr.

Paul Smith, British Council Country Director, Afghanistan, finds hope for a vibrant and safe future in music.

The remembrance plaque at the British Embassy in Kabul

The remembrance plaque at the British Embassy in Kabul

The remembrance plaque at the British Embassy in Kabul

11.00am, 11/11/11, British Embassy Kabul; 200 of us affirming 'we will remember them'; the poppy wreaths are laid at the memorial in the small garden, in front of which permanently stands the plaque for those 'who died on 19 August 2011 protecting the British Council'.

Paul Smith, our Country Director in Afghanistan, blogs about the attack in Kabul and the reasons for staying afterwards. This piece first appeared in the New York Times.

On 19 August 2011 the unimaginable happened. The most ruthlessly planned and viciously violent direct attack on the British Council in its history occurred over a seven-hour period in Kabul.