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ROOTS OF PEACE HARVEST OF HOPE GALA — 2008December 3, 2008 - The U.S. Department of State and Roots of Peace host the 2nd Annual Harvest of Hope Gala.
 PRESS RELEASE:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATEOffice of the Spokesman MEDIA NOTE Department of State and Roots of Peace to co-host “Harvest of Hope” Mark Kimmitt, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, and Heidi Kuhn, Founder and President of Roots of Peace, a California-based non-governmental organization dedicated to turning minefields into thriving agricultural enterprises, are cosponsoring a dinner on Wednesday, December 3, in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the Department of State, to recognize public-private partnerships with U.S. Government agencies, the private sector, individuals, and the people of Afghanistan, who have worked diligently over the past several years to remove landmines and explosive remnants of war and reclaim the Shomali Valley for vineyards and orchards. “Harvest of Hope’s” Mistress of Ceremonies, Cheryl Jennings, San Francisco-ABC7 News Anchor, will introduce the evening’s program at 7 p.m., with remarks by Assistant Secretary Kimmitt and musical performances by Dave Jenkins, lead singer, Pablo Cruise Band, and Lorin Rowan, Rowan Brothers. The Roots of Peace Global Citizen Awards for 2008 will be presented to Gillian Sorensen, Senior Advisor, United Nations Foundation, and Said Tayeb Jawad, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the United States. Noah Griffin, poet, will offer an interfaith blessing, followed by a gala dinner featuring fruits that are grown in Afghanistan, once known as the “Garden of Central Asia.” Two more songs and a “Mines to Vines” toast will be offered to close the evening’s events. Since 1998, Roots of Peace has raised awareness of the landmine problem and millions of dollars to demine and replant grapevines and other agricultural crops in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Croatia and Iraq. The Roots of Peace Penny Campaign has engaged American children in collecting 25 million pennies for demining and construction of schools and playing fields in Afghanistan. Roots of Peace is one of over 60 organizations in the Public-Private Partnership for Mine Action in the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which manages humanitarian mine action programs (clearance of landmines and explosive remnants of war, survivors assistance, mine risk education), and conventional weapons destruction programs worldwide. To learn more visit www.state.gov/t/pm/wra.
MESSAGE FROM THE U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON:
THE SECRETARY-GENERAL I am pleased to send this message of support to the Roots of Peace “Harvest of Hope” Gala. In my contacts with governments, I seize every opportunity to urge them to ratify the international treaties that address this scourge, including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which entered into force earlier this year.There has been significant progress, but governments are only part of the equation. More than a dozen United Nations entities play a role in mine-action programmes around the world. But much of the actual work is carried out by courageous and stalwart nongovernmental organizations such as Roots of Peace. Together, in recent years, we have cleared tens of millions of square metres of land, destroyed hundreds of thousands of mines and unexploded ordnance, and educated millions of people about mine issues. Behind these numbers are moving stories of limbs spared, lives saved, and anguish avoided. But mine action does more than avert suffering; it lays the foundation for development and peace. Roads once unusable fill with traffic; land once laid to waste sprouts with hospitals and homes, schools and crops. This is tangible, meaningful progress.
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