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Helping Afghanistan Rebuild
Monday, March 18, 2002
(12:50 AM)
By Lenita Powers
Reno Gazette-Journal

Sherdil and Gay-Le Clerc Qaderi, of Reno, are organizers for Friends for Afghan Redevelopment. Sherdil, a native Afghan, fought at age 13 under Ahmad Shah Massoudl, who is in the framed photo.
Image Credit: Candice Towell -- Reno Gazette-Journal.

“The Taliban destroyed every single house,” said the 35-year-old Qaderi, who now owns a Reno fast-food restaurant with his wife. “There was a lot of farming on the plain where they grew grapes for raisins. There were millions of grapevines, but the Taliban took saws and cut them all down because they wanted to starve the people.”

Last April, Elie Krakowski witnessed the depths of the Afghan people’s suffering when he visited a refugee camp where some women had just given birth.

“The babies were already dying because all the mothers had to eat were cups of dirty water from a river with a few blades of grass in them,” said Krakowski, an authority on Afghanistan who once worked for the Pentagon.

“When we talk about poverty in the U. S., we can’t begin
to understand how much misery there is in that country,” he said.

Krakowski will discuss the problems in Afghanistan and the possible future role of the United States at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Siena Resort Hotel-Casino in downtown Reno. His appearance is part of an effort to inform the community of a new nonprofit Reno organization, Friends for Afghan Redevelopment, established to help the people of Afghanistan.

Gay-Le Clerc Qaderi first began holding meetings to discuss starting Friends a few months ago with the help of Reno City Attorney Patricia Lynch.

The goal of the organization is to help bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, Qaderi said.
(More: RGJ.com News Source)
2002 © Reno Gazette-Journal.

Dan