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Charlie Wilson's WarJoin Roots of Peace in helping to fulfill Charlie's hope of rebuilding Afghanistan. When you donate to Roots of Peace all contributions will help to eradicate landmines in Afghanistan and plant native crops to replenish the land. Roots of Peace works in consort with the online social action network Takepart, helping to open up doors for those who want to change the world for the better.
Roots of Peace Roots of Peace has been committed to assisting disadvantaged, rural communities in the post-conflict countries of Afghanistan, Cambodia, Croatia, Iraq and Kyrgyzstan since our founding in 1997. Our wide-spread programs have helped remove deadly landmines and revitalized horticultural crops such as grapes, orchard fruits and nuts. We have helped thousands of rural farmers realize higher levels of income through the production of higher yielding and higher quality produce and the marketing of these high value crops to international markets. We started work in Afghanistan following the events of 9/11 to begin healing the wounds of war created from decades of conflict that left Afghanistan one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. Working in partnership with The HALO Trust, Adopt-A-Minefield (AAM) and United Nations Mine Action Center, we launch our first demining project in the Shomali just north of Kabul, where most of this rich agricultural region had been destroyed and remained fallow due to the presence of landmines. Since that time, we have funded clearance of over 11 million square meters of land and removed and destroyed over 100,000 landmines and other unexploded ordnance. In 2004, we began replanting, focusing first on rejuvenating the grape and raisin industry and laying the ground work for the longer term rebirth of the proud Afghan tradition as regional leaders in horticultural production. We led a consortium of partners whose members included the University of California, Davis for horticulture expertise; Agland Investments for agribusiness expertise; IFDC for fertilizer and ag inputs; and three Afghan implementing partners, Afghan Center, Afghan Development Association, and Global Partnership for Afghanistan for field implementation of extension programs and construction projects. We worked directly with 3,800 farmers and indirectly benefited over 80,000 Afghans to demonstrate improvements that would double grape farmer incomes by implementing effective means for a short-term boost of production volumes and quality and clearly established new market opportunities for Afghan grapes and raisins. We have since launched eight additional multi-year replanting programs in Afghanistan expanding our focus to include fruit and nut orchards and rural business enterprise development. (Please see Roots of Peace in Afghanistan for more program information.) We collaborate and coordinate our programs with a myriad of organizations within the Afghan government as well as among the NGO community working on the ground in the country. Some of these groups include CNFA for fruit and nut processing; International Foundation of Hope (IFHope) for orchard and nursery development in Jalalabad and On the Frontier (OTF Group) for fresh fruit exports. We’ve also assist Afghans for Tomorrow in getting donated items to Afghanistan and connecting them with wool suppliers in Mazar-e-Sharif.
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