Since the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake happened in Japan in January 17th 1995,
we started disaster relief overseas with the spirit 'to help one another when one is at difficult time'.
We try to make relationships between affected people to learn from each other.
CODE
PresentProject

Afghanistan Grape Project Ongoing

(1)Refurbishing the Grape Fields

























◆The beginning of the project
The Rescue Committee, predecessor of CODE, started helping people in Afghanistan when they have an air strike in 2001. Before this, we had a project then the earthquake happened in North-east part of Afghanistan in 1998. We had to face the war in 2001 for the first time of our life. We helped constructing a Women's Self-help Center, building a school for girls and repairing the traditional ground water tunnels called 'Calais'. Finally we started the project with the Grape Fund in 2003. We have been supporting Afghanistan for long time.

◆「The Grape Project」
We first started the Grape Fund in June 2003 in order to support the grape farmers who affected by the conflicts. The fund 3,000,000 yen collected in Japan was loaned to the 288 grape farmers by the cooperative union in Ahghanistan. With this loan, the grape farmers successfully refurnished their grape farms by getting tools and grape seedlings, and 112 households returned the loan after the harvest in the second year of the project. Those returned loans are going to be loaned to new grape farmers. By June 2013, 537 housholds joined this project.

◆The Technical Training in Japan with JICA
6 grape farmers from Afghanistan were invited to Sayo town, Hyogo prefecture and Yamanashi prefecture in Japan for a week to learn skills for growing grapes with JICA's peoject 'JICA Partnership Program' taken place from 2007 to 2009. They have learnt how to clip grapes, how to grow them with grapevine trellis style, how to take care of them with less water and how to prevent plant disease in the fields in Yamanashi prefecture.

Traineers now share what they learnt with JICA Partnership Programme with other grape farmers in Afghanistan. According to them, some grape farmers harvest twice as much as grapes they did before. They proactively try to make goat and chisken  manure to grow grapes organically.

One trainee told us that it is inevitable to have peace to give and live lives. TPeople in Afghanistan always live with the danger of natural disaster such as drought. War, conflict and drought are now global issues. We cannot forget that individual act in Japan could directly/indirectly relate to the lives in Afghanistan.

◆The challenges for the future
There has been a problem since 2010. They said us that the amount of the grapes increased but there is no place to sell them. They usually sold grapes at the market connected to Pakistan but the routes were shut down by political reasons. The cooperative union still look for new routes such as to India and try to find a way for long strage. We also try to find an alternative way to support them through our counterpart in Afghanistan. We would be grateful if you participate to the project to support people in Afghanistan.





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