Sarah Lenti
Afghanistan is on my mind of late, as I’m headed there in less than a week now. Recall the movie Charlie Wilson’s War? Well that very same outstanding lady, Joanne King Herring, who led the fight against Russian expansion in Afghanistan, is now embarking once again to help the Afghani people stand up, just as U.S. military forces begin to stand down. Joanne is back in full force, and I am headed out to Herat to help her accomplish her new mission, if you will.
Never has the mission been so critical, and never has the timing been so perfect and right for Joanne’s erstwhile dream of helping to empower Afghanistan one village at a time. Statistics have proven that no village can lift itself out of poverty without simultaneously introducing five basic elements. To that end, Joanne has created Marshall Plan Charities to provide villages in Afghanistan with the five essentials – clean water, food security, a health system, schools that educate and an economic model for villages to succeed by producing goods.
It’s not rocket science. An Afghan civilian population with clean water, sustainable food sources, basic health care, modern schools and real jobs diminishes the need for, or reliance upon, Taliban poppy fields or U.S. military protection. To fully capitalize on the ongoing U.S. military successes inAfghanistan, Afghan civilians must be provided with the basic tools of civilization so that a culture of self-reliance can permanently supplant a hopeless return to dependence upon a fundamentalist dictatorship.
And in the process, spare the world a breeding ground and staging area for international terrorism.
Saving a village
Joanne has been building toward this mission of empowering the Afghan people to transform their own villages into self-sustaining and self-standing units of productivity for more than 30 years. And now, after very careful strategic planning over the past three years, Marshall Plan Charities is ready to take on its first model village. We will do this by working with tried and tested non-governmental organizations who are the best in their fields and have uncontested expertise.
It is not Marshall Plan Charities’ intent to tell these NGOs how to run their business, equip a school, construct a clinic, clean a well, or plant a crop. It is MPC’s intent, however, to create a structure wherein organizations can work together seamlessly toward the successful completion of a more developed village. It’s a holistic approach. After our first village has proven this approach superior and effective, Marshall Plan Charities will happily move anywhere in Afghanistan where we can implement all five facets of our program.
The great news is that we can stand up a village in a year at a price tag that is far less than keeping one soldier alive in the field. We can save a village, or we can save a life. In my mind, this is great news. It’s time to bring our troops home.
I’ll be in Afghanistan from Aug. 5-13 and will update you while I’m there.
Sarah Lenti is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s The Savvy. E-mail her at sarah@nmpolitics.net.