Provide Care for Afghanistan's Abandoned Children

Our Children’s Garden and foster child program in Badakshan, Afghanistan, continues to nurture 20 orphaned children and 32 children overall.

Our three-acre vegetable garden, 85 fruit trees and abundant chicken eggs provide “food security” for these children. Currently, 20 orphaned children find a home because they come with food.

We have learned that good families all over the world will take in orphaned children if they have food to feed them.

As part of our commitment to transparency, we have attached key oversight documents related to this program including several photos and two videos of crop distribution to our children last month. 

Because our program was grown locally and is managed by the local people of Baharak AND governed by a three-tier anti corruption committee — it is now considered one of the best community led food relief programs in the region.

Furthermore, the program has the local roots it needs to survive the coming Taliban invasion and civil war.

Videos. These two videos were shot on location on September 15th, 2015

When it comes to the distribution of aid in any war-torn land, seeing is believing.

Please click on the links. The videos were shot by our garden manager with a smart phone:

crop distribution video 1

crop distribution video 2

Oversight: three-tier anticorruption committee

Funds are raised and then wired in the USA to Afghanistan with clear benchmarks (tier one). Funds are received by MSSRO  — an Afghan charity that has a proven track record of success in a land where corruption is more the rule than aberation (tier two). Funds are spent on the project in Baharak with the review of Village Leaders (tier three). A review of all tier activity is then conducted by Global Roots treasurer in the USA and results are submitted to GR board and ED. No successive funds can be wired until the project passes a monthly review. In this review tier reports are compared to other data including monthly distribution sheets, photographic images and video.

2015 Security Metrics

Baharak is a region inside the extreme northern province of Badakshan with extreme security metrics. With nearby Kunduz under their control, the Taliban are now pushing towards Faizabad, Badakshan’s most important city.

This is a serious situation that we are monitoring day and night (see the attached news story for an update).

We expect that our ground staff will soon leave Baharak to take shelter in nearby Faizabad with the 20 orphaned children we support and any of the other ten who will be cleared for travel by their parents.

Please consider making an urgent donation into a fund that will pay for the prospective evacuation of our children to a safe dormitory in Faizabad.

If the Taliban along with foreign mercenaries don’t remain in Baharak, then our project will be safe and any funds collected between now and the New Year will be applied to project expansion to Faizabad next year.

Year End Report

Stay tuned for our year-end report which will be posted at the beginning of December. Included in this report will be the details of how our fruit tree program has benefited local families and continues tomato our overall project sustainable.

Total vegetable and egg production will be tallied along with total distribution. These figures will be divided by the number of children in the program. 

We are also seeking approval of Baharak community elders to tell the individual story of four orphaned children. We have already received four bios but they do not go into any level of detail that could be interesting to you, our esteemed Global Giving donors.

We will not publish the enhanced bios, however, until the security threat decreases to a manageable level.

Transparency and Oversight Report from our manager JJ on the ground in Afghanistan.

Greetings RM (Global Roots ED)

As you might know Qundoz province has been captured and the security conditions in Badakhshan particularly in Baharak and neighboring districts is getting worse day by day so I am concerned about our staff and projects and students and my family there.

Please find the documents of our BCG actual expenses in July and Aug and pay totally 2282.3$ accordingly. I have put Patrick in cc in order to help you with translations if needed. We have tried to reduce the expenses after the plantation and growing season.

BCG is active till October as we have agreed before starting this year.

Last year the security conditions in Badakhshan particularly in Baharak was good so orphans from far villages could come but this year there were lots security issues in Badakhshan and Baharak was going worse day by day so except those who were near to BCG we couldn't register other orphans. On the other hand, many people were displaced from Baharak neighbor districts, Jurm and Yumgan,to Baharak near to BCG and their children needed help and they requested to register their children at BCG so as a charity we included some of these children to BCG instead of those who could not attend BCG this year.

I will update with recent photos, list of children, list of vegetables distributed and information of orphans and etc from BCG manager as soon as possible and share to you.

With best regards, JJ

Links:

• our project is located in Baharak -- a region of Badakshan

Greetings Global Giving donors. 

It has been a while since I posted a project report due to Taliban activity in the extreme northern Afghan region of Badakhshan. This region, previously unattainable to Taliban reach, is suddenly threatened.

I have hoped for years that USA AID or the World Food Program would join us in maintaining and even expanding this program but this has yet to happen. I am surprised because a prominent Afghan humanitarian recently declared our project as “sound” and an American Air Force general who has tracked our project for over two years says it answers severe security metrics for the Afghan people.

I am so honored to manage transparency/oversight issues for this program because it is winning the hearts of local parents and, perhaps just as importantly, lifting the spirits of all participants and protecting local orphaned children from Taliban conscription.

I sincerely believe that American foreign policy would be greatly boosted if we spent just 10% of our current annual military budget on the active support of children in war zones and areas of post conflict. Nothing matters more to parents worldwide than their children…and anyone who comes in to take care of orphaned children is the true hero.

From all of us at Global Roots — including our local Afghan staff in Badakhshan and Kabul — THANK YOU. None of this would be possible without the monthly donation of Global Giving donors. Taskakur and may peace be with you.

What follows are two of the most important project reports we have received over the last few months from JJ in Badakshan and a collection of photos that are required for oversight purposes.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

RM — transparency/oversight manager for BCG at GlobalRoots.org

Achievements for 2015

• Garden expansion — 1000 square meters.
• Delivery of five fruit trees to five of the poorest families with registered children in the program
• Training of children and families for care of fruit trees: peach, apple, almond, apricot and walnut.
• 100 fruit trees sold to support the program, 300 planted
• The successful hiring of new garden manager
• Development of new BCG office in Kabul (important for oversight data transmission)
• Studies completed for expansion to Faizabad
• A new diesel pump for irrigation

2015 Project Updates

BCG Project Report, March 2015

Greetings RM,

I visited Badakhshan and came back last week. There is no snow on the earth in Baharak and spring season is almost started. So wanted know your opinions when and how to start. Our promise was March 15 which is very near.

A good news of my travel in connection with BCG is that we could distribute five fruit- trees from our BCG farm to each of our registered children. They are planting them next to their house or gardens and will get benefit of their fruits in coming years. The trees were peach,apple, almond, apricot and walnut.

I have its video and photos and will share you the photos. The children were also guided how to plant them well and take care of. Receiving the trees the children were very happy and smily. The people and community leaders had very positive and encouraging feedbacks on our tree-distribution activity. We also sold 100 trees and have almost 300 more trees in the farm.

With regards

JJ

BCG Project Report, April 2015

Hello RM

Thanks for wiring the fund for restart of BCG in 2015. I will also try to make a better communication and reporting system this year. I am announcing a vacancy for BCG project manager this week. The previous one has finished his contract and I am trying to find a better candidate who will be able to access computer and a little bit English to facilitate our work and project. Definitely when this manager is hired, he/she will be responsible to have direct connection with children teachers and relatives and prepare measurable data. It will be helpful both for Globalroots and Marcopolo organizations.

Currently a gaurd (daily worker) is hired since March first to prepare the land for planting vegetables. His name is Muhibbullah; a very good person and hard worker.

As you know,we need a water pump very urgently and will provide one before planting anything because once we planted then they need water very soon so I prefer to buy it before anything else. My plan is to enroll more children to BCG this year. This means that besides orphans some children whose family are very weak economically and have poor nutrition will also have chance to get enrolled in BCG.

Meanwhile, the capacity of BCG vegetable products will increase considerably this year. It is because of enlarging BCG space (I have dedicated 1000 square meter space of my own land for cultivating vegetables to BCG volunteerily this year) for our official documentations we need two documents to be prepared by Global roots; a memorandum of understanding in general and a specific letter of contract or funding approval for BCG in 2015. 

Having these documents enable us to prepare reports to relevant authorities normally each six month and send you  copy of our reports. I also plan to bring some innovation to BCG this year like sport opportunities to the children, vegetable lunch, group matching, weekly lessons both practical and theory, and so on which will be shared with you in details on time.

At the end I want to share one more good news to you that is establishing an office for Marcopolo in Kabul. Since Janaury 2015. I hope this will help us achieve our charitable goals and expand Marcopolo activies.

With regards

JJ