 Hello, welcome to Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair and this is Finding Respect in the Chaos, a very special, special episode of Finding Respect in the Chaos. This is a safe place for survivors of abuse to come and tell their stories and a place for advocates to come on and share important resources. And right now I have someone with me, Heidi Kuhn. Thank you so much for coming. Heidi is the CEO of Root to Peace, which is a nonprofit that is removing landmines and replacing them with crops once the land has been cleared. And she has done so many amazing things. Today, we are doing a little bit of a follow-up because of her effort to neck Afghanistan and how they are at risk at this time. Heidi, I cannot thank you enough for coming on today to share some of your time and I'm sure it's precious time at this point. So thank you so much for coming on with us today. It's an honor to be with you once again, Cynthia. Well, Heidi and I know each other from high school. So we've known each other pretty much our whole lives almost, it seems like, right? And I feel just blessed that you are still in my life and that I get to be able to have a conversation with someone who I admire so very much. You've been doing this work for 20 years now. And you wrote a book just recently and I wanna show everybody the cover of your book so that they know what to go out and buy on Amazon and I cannot recommend this highly enough. I not only have read it twice but I have gone back and highlighted, you know just the parts that I love the most so I can flip through it and read them again because they're so inspiring. It is now a New York Times bestseller, I believe, right? Amazing, amazing. So your mission statement and I wanna read it because I think it's important for people to understand. It is replacing the scourge of landmines with the bountiful vineyards and orchards worldwide and providing exports to new markets, peace through agriculture. Love that so much. So now you launched this whole roots of peace and is it NGO or nonprofit or how is it NGO? But it's kind of both, right? Yes, yes, most definitely. So we have a slide of that launch date, that slide. There's some pretty important people in that slide. If you look, you'll see Nancy Pelosi in there, Mrs. Kofi Annan. And so two short years later, you got an incredible endorsement from Kofi Annan. Yes, his excellence in Kofi Annan and that was another one I wanna read because it's so incredible. If you could pull out up for me, Eric, that'd be great. There we go. You have turned mines into vines by replacing the seeds of destruction, the seeds of life. And you have shown the world that even with modest beginnings, a partnership backed up by persistence can make a real difference. Persistence is your middle name, right? I think maybe so. So you've also won a lot of awards, right? Like, the list is so long, it would take too long to go over all of them right now. So I just wanna like, there's a couple of them that are incredibly notable and that you won a Nobel Prize, which is remarkable. And that's you with Klaus Nobel. They created a special award. Can you tell us about that? Well, first of all, Cynthia, it is so wonderful to be invited on your show. And just to be the dear and best friends we were in the 1970s growing up as young teenagers in a place called Marin County, California. And to be dreamers at that time in our world and to dream a peace and to dream of love, that was our generation. And that has never been needed more than now in this world we share. And yes, the honor of Marcus and Klaus Nobel of being presented the inaugural Earth Ethics Award by the Nobel family. Of course, their descendant had created the Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Peace Prize. And it was just so, such an honor to be in the presence of really greatness standing there on the balcony of the United Nations and the fourth floor overlooking the beautiful river and just thinking of the global vision that is so needed in the one world we share. I had just returned back from India bringing Afghan farmers and traders to negotiate deals in India and to bring forth a harvest of hope and just to hold that beautiful global ball in my hands fresh off the airport. And it was the 21st of September and that date happened to have coincided with the memorial service of the late Secretary General Kofi Annan. So it was just so full circle to have been there at the United Nations during his memorial to receive the inaugural peace award and to remember the opening of my book which was the generational wisdom that my granny McNear had taught to me and that is coincidence is a miracle in which God prefers to remain anonymous. And Cynthia, as you know, I've never ever faltered from that. There are no coincidences and the Aloha spirit that has brought us both back together from teenagers to women in our wisdom years and to bring that generational wisdom forth to our children, our grandchildren and once our footsteps are done to leave a legacy behind, a legacy for planting the roots of peace on earth now. Here, here. We want to say amen. It almost sounded like that. Namaste. My next part that I want to go to because you got another rather remarkable award that I do want to talk about and I'm going to read a little section from your book that introduces this award. As we're continued to spread regarding our genuine efforts to heal the wounds of war for humanity, more unexpected affirmations appeared along the journey. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Gandhi, a mystic from India traveled to meet me to bestow the Mahatma Gandhi Siva Medal from Gandhi Global Family as a tribute to my beliefs which were in alignment with their founders beliefs. Boy, they got that one right. Of anyone in this world that I know of right now, you get closer to that man's beliefs than pretty much anyone I've ever seen before, ever. And we have a picture of that, I think, don't we? Yes, we do, and I want you to tell us about the little girl that's in this picture. Oh, goodness. Well, that was such a joyful moment because it was 150th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi and that was a place called Rashgath which is the sacred place of his permanent burial site. And of course, he was tragically assassinated in January and buried at that site. And to be there to celebrate his birth a day on October 2nd, 2019 was just such a phenomenal experience. And I just did not want to accept this award. I was the first American to receive the Gandhi Sava Award for peace, but I didn't want to accept it for myself because it's not about me. So I found a dear little girl I had just met age 10 years old and Zahra. And I said, Zahra, come with me, little Afghan child. And we accept this award on behalf of you and future generations of Afghanistan to truly live in a country of peace. And that is just makes my heart swell right now so much. Cynthia, I'm bringing forth another call to action, another vision similar to the salt march that Gandhi had taken to the sea for the purposes of taxes and the British. And he was so frustrated by the situation he just needed to lead the world in a non-violent effort to break the chain of violence. So of course that is in the history books, but I would like to call forth another call to action. And that would be on the advent of the 20th anniversary of 9-11 that we as Roots of Peace and as global citizens call forth all those on the face of the earth to drop to their knees, whatever faith in our hearts, to touch the soil, to feel the earth and to dig deeper for peace like never before, to plant a seed, to plant a flower, to plant an olive tree, but to join in hands in the one earth that we share and to celebrate the seeds we have in common as opposed to those which separate us. I'd like to call upon people to hashtag Roots of Peace. And if we can make an ice bucket campaign, though viral, why cannot we call people to plant a beautiful plumeria, that's beautiful flower in Hawaii, a beautiful cactus in Arizona, a beautiful, whatever the seeds of life bloom from this earth. We live in COVID times, we live with wildfires. We live with such a rage above the earth because to me, in my humble opinion, we have not properly taken care of the skin of Mother Nature and we have violated that skin. We have pierced it with landmines, 60 million landmines in 60 countries. So as we bow to our knees right now, which is so needed with what is going on, the atrocities in Afghanistan, I think the world needs to get to their knees because that's the only way you can plant a seed. You have to fall to the ground on your knees and whether you're just falling to the ground with a good heart or you're praying to Allah or Buddha or whomever that path to the divine, it is our one creator that allows the seasons of the harvest and this is a harvest of hope that we can either greet this fall or accept the violation that we have done to the earth and that is manifested in real time with what we are witnessing and the atrocities that are happening in Afghanistan to good and loving people. So on the celebration or no, it's not certainly a celebration and the solemn tribute to the 20th anniversary of 9-11, let us bow to our knees and let us plant the roots of peace on earth and hashtag use the tools of social media, take a photo of yourself, take a selfie, be with friends, plant a garden, plant a little, hold up a little daisy, be creative, but let's get the world inspired. What is your global garden? How do you do peace in your backyard? Because I started roots of peace in my backyard right here in San Rafael, California and Cynthia you were right here with me holding hands and going out to the backyard and just praying for peace and we stumble, we fall, we make mistakes as human beings. Many mistakes were made in Afghanistan but this is not a time to point fingers to say which administration was right or wrong. Mistakes were made, but what are we gonna do tomorrow and what are we gonna do as global citizens to cultivate a harvest of hope? Cause the choice is within our hands, it's within our means and it's how we embrace the one earth that we share. So let's, you know, Gandhi taught us with that incredible vision of the salt march to the sea. Let us go wider, not just by land by sea but let us all inspire global citizens to plant the roots of peace on earth now. Now that was a prayer that I say amen to for sure. We have a slide of some of the interfaith stuff that you have been doing throughout your whole career and I was actually gonna ask you a question about that but you kind of sort of brought it up too of how that, you know, I was gonna ask you how that that interface, I mean like I'm a Methodist, you're a Catholic but we are under the same ecumenical God and so I wanna know how that ecumenical spirit has aided you and helped you in Afghanistan specifically and especially now. Well, I personally have been praying that God would just make a new Passover. They wouldn't even require the blood on the doors, right? Just after all the innocents that are gonna be hurt and just somehow in a miraculous way protect them and that's what I pray for so many. And I know you do and Cynthia, that's why today I've been on ABC, NBC, CBS and my favorite media desgeur is you because you are the real deal and you are the true spirit and I know and I have faith that I know you're praying for my footsteps and it's not easy to be a CEO and a woman of an organization that's leading the way in Afghanistan. You know, the Taliban traditionally has not respected women. Now today they announced that we will respect women and they will welcome development in Afghanistan and why they haven't had the greatest track record in the past, let's say lightly. I have to believe on the promises of people's greater angels because I think it's a defining moment for the Taliban and I think they too have children and Roots of Peace carries no flag, we're just here to help feed the children of the Taliban, the children of the world. The children carry no flag, right? And we just need to, as you say, with the spirit, the Holy Spirit, the spirit of the earth, the spirit of the Native Americans, we are all daughters and sons of Abraham and the sooner we get back to the garden, you know? And those were the songs that we danced to when we were teens at Santa Fe High School, you know? You know, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden because a garden without landmines is the garden I wanna dance to. So you and Roots of Peace have removed 1.1 million landmines, is that? We've hundreds of thousands and actually by the advocacy we've done millions of landmines around the world, you know, certainly in partnership with the Halo Trust and MAGS at Mine Advisory Board where there are implementing partners that we raise the funds to eradicate these seeds of terror that we've sown into the skin of Mother Nature. But what we do after that is what's critically important and that's the expertise of Roots of Peace because we train the local farmers to grow high value crops for export and trade. And in the situation of Afghanistan, we've trained over hundreds of thousands of Afghan farmers. We planted 6 million fruit trees in all 34 provinces impacting over 1 million farmers and traders. And you know, this is a vision, this is my living room of my home. You've sat here many times, Cynthia, and you know, this was just a dream in a mother's heart on September 21st, 1997. And to nurture that seed, that dream of turning mines to vines, replacing the scourge of landmines with bountiful vineyards and orchards worldwide, that seed in the ground took nurturing and the nurturing was my husband, Gary, and our four children who watched it bloom. And you know, they often say that they had a fifth child in the family other than my four children because they had Roots of Peace. And you know, they had a love it like a sibling. They were jealous of it because it took their mom's attention. They had to forgive it a lot when I was out in a war zone. But in the end, it was unconditional love and without the support of my husband and my four children. And now three grandchildren, you know, my other little darlings are pregnant again and their wives and next year at this time, they'll have six grandchildren. So from three to six, you know, so I have a responsibility with the footsteps in my life. What is left in the footsteps that God will grant me and those footsteps are to be taken for peace. And I'm very clear about that. It's grounded wisdom and that's how I feel. You're amazing. I think we have a picture of you and Gary actually. There we are. Well, we're in Angola there and we're demining actually the field where Princess Diana had once walked in Hwambo Angola. So that was just a really incredible moment. And you know, taking a husband and wife and taking your love to a minefield for the greater good of making the land safe for the children to walk. Pretty special. Very special. Now that's only the third time I've almost cried today so far. Okay, so I have a clip from our last year's show that I wanna show. And then let's talk about it on the other side, okay? Sure. We are gonna go past the next slide because otherwise we won't have time to talk. No, show it quickly. We'll turbo through it. It's the alternative crops one. And it's three families. Families. And grapes, right? Yep. But it's pepper too, didn't you like it? It is pepper in Vietnam, but you know, the Afghan farmers, the fresh grapes are indigenous. Afghanistan is a country, 80% dependent upon agribusiness. And if we're gonna lift Afghanistan up from the rubble and the political landmines, it's through this harvest of hope that we are, you know. So from that little toast of mines to vines today, I'm managing over $100 million under contract in Afghanistan. So, you know, this isn't a time in our world to think small. We need to think big, but we need to be humble in our footsteps and step by step, plant the roots of peace on earth now. I totally agree with you. Okay, so I want you to talk to us a little bit more about what was just said in that clip, about some of the process of planting the grapes and some of the process of all of that. And how worried are you now that some of that might fall to the Taliban? And are you, what can you do? What can we do as Americans to support you in this too, to help you to safeguard all that work that you guys have been doing over there for the last 20 years and to safeguard the people that have been lifted from poverty because of what you have done? Going forward with, what can we help you with? Oh, Cynthia, thank you so much. Well, you know, the one thing that we have, the legacy we've left behind in Afghanistan is sustainable peace. We've trained the farmers to grow the high value crops, you know, to prune the vine to double the yield as you saw the economics of peace and providing access of exports to new markets. Afghanistan was and is and will remain a country, 80% dependent upon agriculture. So the land is ripe, just like Napa Sonoma Valley, San Joaquin, the fruit is ripe right now in August. And either we cultivate a harvest of hope on the 20th anniversary of 9-11, or we step away and let the fruits rot in the field. And it's a very defining moment for me because I have a choice. I could say, you know what? This has just gotten too hard. I'm done. And check out and go back to a very beautiful life in Marin County, or I go the distance and inspire global citizens to turn guns into shovels. I have to stop you. You would not just go home to your house. I won't fall for that, sorry. I got it in a hug. I know you've been down in Guatemala, you've already, you just got back from Guatemala a couple of weeks ago. You've got other programs everywhere in Vietnam and all over the world. So I know you and you might slow you down, but it certainly won't stop. I got to do it again now. Cynthia, you're the best, you are the best. Well, if we went to Guatemala because we don't want to build higher walls, we want to build longer tables for families to eat together at home in Guatemala because if they cultivate the coffee and the avocados and the beautiful onions, then they won't have to come leaving their families to come to our borders looking for jobs. They'll be quite content to stay at home. But Cynthia, people can help us, especially in Afghanistan right now because please go on our website, www.routesofpeace.org. Not only are we managing the harvest, which we will not walk away from, but we are also dealing with a huge crisis. It's not a crisis, Cynthia, it's a catastrophe in Afghanistan and all of the remote regions of Afghanistan, the people have fled in fear when the Taliban took over their provinces and they thought they would be safe to congregate in the capital city of Kabul. Well, we've seen what's happened to Kabul, the devastation and 500,000 IDPs and that's the acronym for internally displaced persons have converged upon Kabul. And these are very poor farmers, poor people just fleeing their land for their families' sake. And they are aligning the roads, the dirt roads leading into Kabul, sleeping in the cold night, no blankets, no tents, no food and just a heart-wrenching story last Saturday that my director of communications, Yasser told me he was walking to our Roots of Peace offices and he looked on the side of the road and a mother was cradling her baby in her arm and weeping, weeping and he stopped and he said, what may I do to help you? And she looked up, he said, with the saddest eyes and said, my baby just died a few moments ago. I had come from Badakshan province and for three days I couldn't find milk in the city. My baby had just died and she offered the child I have nowhere to bury it. And he busted up, walked into our office, told them the story and these are people as a non-profit. We don't, they're not rich people, but our office at Roots of Peace in Afghanistan got together and they raised $500 and they told Yasser to go back out in the streets and take care of the other mothers with their babies so they don't have to suffer the same destiny of holding a child, cradling a child in their arm who had died. So that motivated us to action. We had received a generous donation from Jeff's school of 25,000. My dear friend in China, Frankie who was one of the Godfathers of the semiconductor in the Silicon Valley matched those funds. So I have $50,000 to bring the tents and bring the food because all the United Nations, everybody's fled. Afghanistan is a disaster. The airports closed, the banks are closed, the supermarkets are closed. So what are those 500,000 people doing tonight on those streets with families, cuddling together to keep them warm because they're freezing and starving. So Roots of Peace, the good thing I guess I can say about having those 360 expats that are trapped there which I'm trying extremely hard with President Biden to appeal to get them on planes and safely out of Afghanistan. But these are incredible people and while they're there, they have access to trucks and they have access to transportation. They're excellent at logistics and we are determined to bring those tents, food and shelter to those who unspoken voices that's not even covered in the media, this story. So 100% of the donations to Roots of Peace, www.rootsofpeace.org will immediately, not in a few days, allowing more children and babies to die, immediately will be sent to our team. They will deploy the emergency necessary equipment and we will get the job done. We're gonna plant the Roots of Peace on Earth and by God, by Allah, we're gonna make sure those, nobody, at least to the degree that we can mitigate this catastrophe. People are dying left and right in those horrifying videos of people falling from the sky just clamoring to get out of the country. My husband and I collectively, and he far more than I, has 75 trips to Afghanistan over the last 20 years and just to think of ourselves flying out so many times of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, but people falling from the sky, we should be ashamed of ourselves as global citizens, but rather than staying in that shame, that guilt, that blame game, let's take this moment on your show, Cynthia, and have it that defining moment, let's plant a seed, let's plant a garden, let's bring ourselves to our consciousness as global citizens and plant the Roots of Peace on Earth now. So I know that on March 28th, 2014, something terrible happened in Afghanistan for you guys. Can you tell us about that? Well, Roots of Peace was tragically attacked by the Taliban and again, we were sitting in the living room at the same home where the toast was made in 1997, but the worst information came from a call very early in the morning. We are under attack. The Taliban is at our door and it was a four and a half hour gun battle. Listening to it live is nothing I ever would want anybody to have to suffer what we had heard, knowing that our five expats were trapped, and hearing those gunshots and those last calls by desperate young men, Ali Akbar, and hearing them detonate themselves with the bombs that were strapped to their bodies, but it was a defining moment for me. It was terribly, terribly stressful and beyond words, PTSD amplified, but I looked a few months later, my first born grandchild, Jai, was born and you look into the eyes of that little child and you think about the fact that to whom much has been given, much is expected and it was a real giddy up moment for me to get back on the horse, get it together and ride ahead and with my husband Gary and our incredible staff of now 360 Afghans, we took the agricultural crops from 2014 to an average of 250 million, up to $1.4 billion in ag exports and that's the economics of peace, that's the business of peace, that's the business model that we have implemented and that will be our legacy in Afghanistan because when we step away, we know in our hearts that we have trained millions of farmers to grow high value crops with modern agricultural techniques and that's a business model. One day we do hope to put ourselves out of business because we wanna pass that transfer of knowledge to farmers and have them have the dignity to walk the earth without landmines one day, inshallah, and just to celebrate the one earth that we have in common, a beautiful earth that still loves us, that produces fruits and flowers and I think that should be our call to action, how we honor the 20th anniversary of 9-11 with our better angels. Right, so I have another clip I wanna show. It's also from last year. If you could bring that one up for us, that'd be great. We'll talk about it on the other side. And so there was 5,000 women that have had their lives changed because of what we learned over there. They're now farmers and they've been empowered and women, like you said, women don't even get invited to the office. I know, I know what roots of peace I must stress is humanitarian, it's not political. And that photo with the women in the Somali plains you can see with their burkas on, we don't make them take them off. We respect their culture, but we're training them to be proud farmers. And just like microcredit lending, the men see the value of the women working from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. in those fields before their children wake up. And it makes their lives easier. And then they go back home and throughout the day they cook the meal and they come home and together as husband and wife they're able to celebrate the harvest. And the women have something to talk about. They feel part of it, not just home, inside cooking but they're contributing to the fruits of the earth, the fruit of the vine and the work of human hands. Okay, that's cool. That's another one, can I be crying? I think I'm on number five or six now, I'm not sure. So I wanna talk to you about what this means for the women in Afghanistan. And I know we're kind of starting around a little bit out of time, but that's okay. I think this is very important. And I know we get a little extra time to talk about it tonight. So tell us what this means for the women and for you as a woman business owner in Afghanistan. Well, it's sunshine and shadow as life is Cynthia. I'm so proud that Roots of Peace has inspired so many women to get an education to believe in their dreams this past weekend. I hosted a young woman whom I met at 11 years old and she was part of our Roots of Peace girls Afghan soccer team. And we train them on high walls, so none of the men could see them playing competitive soccer. And she was 11 and just so inspired to get an education and pursue her dreams. And coincidentally, we had a beautiful celebration that was planned days before of the Afghan-American friendship and that was the day that Kabul fell. And the solemn sadness is these beautiful women dressed in beautiful Afghan clothing entered my home and then talking about the great sadness. But in meeting, her name is Beebe. She was now 26 years old. She had brought her two children and I hadn't seen her since the soccer fields in Kabul. And it was just such a joy to see that those seeds that you had planted so many years ago. My husband was the soccer coach in Marin County. You know, he taught all the kids how to play. He's kind of a legend here in Marin but he had taught those girls in Afghanistan to play and see her as a young woman and deeply inspired. I have since hired her today as our Roots of Peace Afghan women's program manager and we're going to join hands the two of us Afghan-American women and we're going to take it up an inch, you know because with the Taliban takeover, you know the threat that I have on my head is not only being the CEO of an American organization but being a woman. And let's just say positively that in the past that was not such a good thing in Afghanistan but I'm again counting on the higher angels of the Taliban to deliver on the promise they made today to respect women and to support agriculture. And I had not one to live in fear and one to live in faith. So let's be the inspiration that we wanna see in the world. Let's feed the children, including the Taliban children. You know, they deserve to eat too and I'm not gonna get caught in the politics of the blame game, you know Biden, Trump who got us into this, you know that was yesterday, this is tomorrow and I am seeking a harvest of hope 2021 like never before. Whoo, on that note, I'd say go Bulldogs. I think I cried six times. I was bruised all the time I had. There was a couple of times where I felt like my heart was just gonna swell up out of my chest when I got the little girl and just so many incredible things that I don't even know how to recap them because there's too many of them and they're all so incredible. So Heidi, thank you. Thank you bottom of my heart for coming on today and sharing your story with us. I promise I will send this out as far and wide as I possibly can. And I'm gonna put that up on the screen again, please if you wanna donate to rootsofpeace.org and I mean everybody, okay? So I'm just a simple nobody who lives on a very, very small budget. But if I can donate $25, everybody can donate. Cynthia, thank you so much. Nothing compared to the $25,000 but you know it's my $25 and it might as well be $25,000 for me. Yes, oh Cynthia, thank you. And when you hold, when you do that donation take a photo of yourself, a little selfie over your beautiful backyard in your turtle sanctuary. Show me what flower you're going to plant. I'm gonna be really interested to see your global garden because I wanna inspire the imagination of people for peace. Roots of Peace on September 11th this year. And I will continue to put that out as we go along to September 11th. Both in my Facebook and Twitter accounts and Instagram and can't believe I'm on this many social medias as old as I am, cause I didn't even learn about it from a few years ago, but oh well. Okay, moving on, Heidi, thank you so very much. Okay, just thank you dear friend. Thank you dear, dear friend. And everything that you are doing, not coming on here now, not just the 20 years of hard work you've already done, not just how in the heck you're gonna, by grace, stay in faith and get through this crisis. And then I know, I can't wait to watch what you're gonna do next. Cause I know it's gonna be as incredible as the last 20 years. So just come in. Cynthia, thank you so much. And I just have to say as to, from the heart of two young Santa fell girls, always to remember San Rafael is the namesake for the angel of healing. And together, let us join hands as young girls and young girls always in our heart to remember our roots of peace and remember the angel of healing and bring that forth into the world which we share. Absolutely. I wanna end this show with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi. Today, the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace. This has been Finding Respect in the Chaos on Think Tech Hawaii. I am Cynthia Lee Sinclair and I hope you will join me for my next show.