Lesley Dovichak isn't going to Afghanistan - but her business lessons are.

Dovichak, 22, belongs to a group called Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) that recently provided business-development training to soldiers who will serve on the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (KPRT) from September until April, 2009.

"I feel that I was able to help bring light to the soldiers who are going to be in this difficult situation and to, possibly, help create opportunities - and hope - for the people in Afghanistan," says Dovichak, president of SIFE at Mount Royal College in Calgary.

Essentially, the students became teachers for 20 soldiers in late April at CFB Wainwright, located at the Alberta town of the same name, who received a half-day's worth of instruction.

As part of their mission, soldiers will teach Afghan women about ways that they can use entrepreneurship to better their lives. The ultimate aim is to help Afghan people develop sustainable business opportunities in the region.

Dovichak, a fourth-year supply-chain management student, says soldiers must be able to look past the immediate military situation if they are going to help Afghan people develop long-term opportunities.

"Thinking like an entrepreneur is a different way of thinking for most people," she says.

Dovichak, along with Jen Lewis, also a fourth-year supply-chain management student, and Mason Brookwell, who studies small business and entrepreneurship, joined MRC business instructor Vance Gough, a naval reservist, to teach soldiers the basics on business processes, planning and "nuts and bolts" operations.

Lewis had previously graduated from the entrepreneurship program.

She and the others worked with soldiers and civil and military co-operation (CIMIC) operators who will help develop infrastructure in Kandahar, in conjunction with civilian groups such as the Canadian International Development Agency and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

"There isn't a lot of infrastructure that is established in Afghanistan," says Dovichak. "That is a huge hurdle ... "It kept coming back to (the attitude) that we can't sell any products or services, or transport anything, because there are no roads. Eventually, we were able to help the soldiers see the bigger picture and to really get a whole overall idea."

Some soldiers who have already been to Afghanistan told the SIFE team that the lessons will help them when they return "We were struggling to get the message across, because it was a very difficult atmosphere," says Dovichak. "That was one of the biggest rewards - to be able to know that we were able to get a message through to them."

Instructor Gough, who was due to be deployed as a public affairs officer in Afghanistan before he suffered a heart attack, says soldiers do not usually receive entrepreneurship training.

He suggests the lessons are targeted toward the right group, because they will work directly with Afghans in one of the most dangerous sections of Kandahar.

"It's not at the (U.S.-protected) airfield," says Gough. "They're right in Kandahar and they go out into the communities and work with the local village leaders. It's ideal that way, because they're the ones that are going to be on the frontlines. They're going to be outside the wire (of the compound) all the time."

MRC's SIFE chapter is part of an international organization of college and university students who help people in disadvantaged areas develop entrepreneurism.

Gough says the sessions provided soldiers with important strategies for generating and screening business ideas.

"It's always the problems that people see, and they always get hung up on those problems because they're not willing to get through them," says Gough. "It's (about) looking at the world through different lenses to say these problems are opportunities."

He adds the effort will help Afghans develop their economy after Canadian soldiers end their operations in the future.

"They really don't have an economy," says Gough.

"Their economy is dependent upon military aid. If we move them to the next step where individuals now take responsibility for themselves and get independence, they won't need international aid to the same extent. That's the premise for why we wanted to do this."

Lori Coady, a CIMIC operator going on her third tour in Afghanistan, says the MRC instruction will assist her dealings with Afghans.

"It made us look outside the box," says Coady, a reservist with the 36th (Newfoundland) Service Battalion from St. John's.

Coady, a supply technician, will serve in Kandahar City. She says the entrepreneurship instruction will help her assist micro-business operators and mentor members of newly created Afghan community development councils.

"Having Mount Royal College's (instruction) actually gives us a better understanding of how to help out in that process," she says.

She says tips on how to do an environmental scan, assess land, resources and crops, and get goods to market will help her show Afghans which businesses are best suited for a given area.

CIMIC operators have different levels of risk, depending on the areas that they cover. In her case, she can bring villagers into the KPRT's secure area or talk to them in another secure spot.

"When you're actually going out and checking on the project, of course, you're taking a risk, but that's what our job is," Coady says.

Maj. Vance White, an 18-year military veteran who has replaced Gough as a spokesman for the Provincial Reconstruction Team members to be deployed in Afghanistan in the fall, says all soldiers serving in Afghanistan are there for the greater good.

"I know from my experience, soldiers are trained that, if they're tasked to do something, they'll find a way to get the job done. If they don't have the normal tools that they would normally have to get the job done, our soldiers are very resourceful."

There's an old saying within the military, he adds, that soldiers have been doing so much with so little for so long that they're now capable of doing almost anything with nothing.

"Our soldiers are very resourceful," he repeats.

Gough says that MRC's proximity to Wainwright may allow even more opportunities in the future.

"The nice thing is that Wainwright is the final training facility (for) every soldier from Canada (who) goes to Afghanistan ... hopefully, can do this again."

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)