Afghanistan Partnership

Talk about international transformation—as news outlets documented the eleventh day of anxious political protests in Egypt—was all too timely at Friday morning's League of Women Voters (LMV) monthly breakfast.

A rapt group of listeners gathered at Hector's Village Cafe to hear Scarsdale resident Dana Freyer describe how an organization she created is working to stabilize and transform another country in the throes of turmoil, but anxious for positive growth.

"We thought it would be an inspiration to share how one person can make a difference," said Larchmont-Mamaroneck LMV President Elisabeth Radow. "Everyone has a spark that can make a difference."

Dana said her ties to Afghanistan were first sparked in 1972. She and her husband Bruce Freyer, a retired Scarsdale entrepreneur and former rabbi, took a driving trip from Germany all the way to Katmandu, Nepal. Through the 27,000 mile journey in their VW bus, Dana recalls seeing the abundant fruit orchards and poplar forests that ably supported families and businesses in Afghanistan. They made many friends throughout their journey, friends who would become refugees years later when the country was devasted by Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

Dana  stayed in touch with those exiled Afghan friends hearing tales of their distressed home country, but she was ultimately drawn back to Afghanistan by events that unfolded outside her own Times Square office window.  Dana, who retired in 2009 as a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, practiced international arbitration and litigation law for 32 years.  In 2001, she could see the devastation at Ground Zero after the World Trade Center attacks from her office, and was moved to do something herself to heal the trauma that had now inextricably tied her own country to the political morass Afghanistan had become.  

By 2003, Dana made her first trip back to Afghanistan and was aghast at what she saw.  Along with her husband and two Afghan friends, she set out to help the country she loved visiting so much 40 years earlier.  It was drastically different when she returned.

“There were no orchards,” Dana recalls. “The hillsides were denuded. The land and agrarian economy was completely in ruins.” 

In a country where over 80 percent of the people live off the land, Dana knew that Afghanistan would be vulnerable to political and economic instability as long as families were unable to earn their own livelihoods or produce their own goods and supplies. 

Dana realized that the refugee situation was also a knowledge drain that kept Afghan residents from using their greatest natural resources.  Global Partnership For Afghanistan (GPFA) teaches farmers the horticultural skills that would have been passed from generation to generation, had a generation of Afghans not been cast out as exiles. 

“The refugee camps are a 30 year knowledge gap,” Dana said. Without those people, Afghan society has lost teachers, mentors, and leaders.  As important as restoring the country’s natural resources are, the self-sufficiency of Afghan families is also its best defense against political exploitation.

“Economic development is the greatest bulwark to insurgency,” said Dana. 

According to Dana, over 70 percent of Afghans are younger than 25 years old. GPFA’s programs are replacing the knowledge and the plants they need to restore the country’s orchards and forests. It is also inspiring opportunities for them to lead their communities and bracing them against pressures from exploiters.

The organization started in 2004 with a staff of just two people, determined to grow and nurture an Afghan staff—rather than bring in Americans—and in partnership with Afghan communities, respect and understand their culture and values.  Working with Afghan communities, the organization’s programs have given men and women a chance at economic prosperity and sufficiency.  

In seven years, the organization has increased its staff to over 180 people, including 40 women who work directly with provincial councils called shura. Having an all-Afghan staff has also benefitted the organization in other ways. 

“Our staff can go all over the country,” said Dana, “to regions other organizations have not yet had access.”  GPFA programs serve 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

Their programs include providing education and supplies to replant fruit and poplar trees, horticulture education to teach farmers the lost skills of grafting, pruning and crop rotation, as well as sustainable water irrigation systems  and watershed rehabilitation projects that have increased water capacity in some areas by nine times.

So far, Dana says, GPFA has assisted 15,000 farmers including 2,000 women. Through the program, farmers promise to repay loans used to purchase plants and materials. 

The impact is dramatic. After first bringing 300 poplar sticks imported from Oregon, Bruce noticed how well they thrived and brought 30,000 more. Those trees, through grafting and other techniques, have yielded six million more trees. Poplar forests take seven to eight years to reach maturity and the timber is used in construction throughout the country.  A family can earn $60,000 annually from a half-acre stand, a monumental increase in prosperity in a country where most measure their annual income in hundreds of dollars.

"GPFA is working with the Afghan people to do work for themselves," said Radow. "The people leaving here [the breakfast] are really inspired that they [as individuals] can do something to make a difference."