Roots of Peace Builds School on Former Afghan Battlefield With Contributions from American Students

Heidi Kuhn and Mrs. Shamim Jawad, wife of His Excellency Said Tayeb Jawad, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the United States, lay the cornerstone for the new school on top of two pennies that symbolized all of the pennies raised for this project by American children. [Photo courtesy of Sharif Usmani, Senior Marketing Agricultural Director, Roots of Peace.]

A photograph of the new school taken in January 2008. Thanks to Roots of Peace and all of the American school children who contributed 1 million pennies ($10,000 dollars), this sturdy 10-room school now protects over 260 Afghan students from the elements. The Afghans have named this the “Kyleigh Kuhn School” in honor of Heidi Kuhn’s daughter who inspired Roots of Peace’s Penny Campaign several years ago. Other Roots of Peace Penny Campaign fund-raising drives have enabled the clearance of mines that posed a hazard adjacent to another school in Afghanistan, cleared other mined areas so that they could be turned into soccer fields for Afghan children, and cleared mines from a plot of land in Huambo, Angola, so that it could be safely used for soccer. To learn about Roots of Peace’s core “Mines to Vines” mission and its initiatives in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Croatia, and Iraq, visit http://www.rootsofpeace.org/. [Photo courtesy of Gary Kuhn, Roots of Peace.]