Contributor

Kate Lord

British Army Physical Training Instructor, mentor at the Afghan National Army Officer Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Staff Sergeant Kate Lord is a British Army physical training instructor who hails from Gateshead in the North East of England. She joined the Army as a signaller in 1999 and transferred into the Royal Army Physical Training Corps in 2008. Her specialist area is exercise rehabilitation and she has worked rehabilitating injured veterans at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Unit at Headley Court.

Kate volunteered to deploy on a nine-month operational tour as a mentor within the physical training department at the newly established Afghan National Army Officer Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Her blog provides an insight to life as a female mentor in a country where women play a very different role in society and her work at the Academy is changing perceptions of what Afghan women are capable of achieving.

Kate is passionate about sport and all aspects of physical training. She loves cycling and running and trained with the Great Britain Nordic skiing and biathlon ski teams. Here in Afghanistan, as well as her work mentoring the Afghan physical trainers, Kate trains every day with her male colleagues in the gymnasium and has been studying hard to complete her degree in Sport Science at the University of Central Lancashire. Kate lives in Exmouth, and shares a flat with her Royal Marine husband and Mansell the Hungarian Vizsla.

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