Dear Readers:
Thank you for letters of support and encouragement. As ever, I cherish and appreciate them immensely.
Well it appears that The Khaled Hosseini Foundation is up and running. We had our first public event to raise funds for the foundation on April 25th. My good friends Michael and Carolyn Bealmear, whom I have known through Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) fundraising, arranged a fundraising evening for us at the Lafayette Orinda Presbyterian Church. Roughly 600 people showed up for the evening, which consisted of an onstage discussion of refugee issues between me and Marc Breslaw, Executive Director of USA for UNHCR. Our conversation focused primarily on the reintegration challenges faced by the millions of Afghan refugees who have returned home, nearly five million of them with assistance from UNHCR.
We spoke at some length about the need for shelters for homeless returnees. As way of background: At the cost of 1,500 dollars per, UNHCR provides returnees with a shelter package, which includes tools, wooden beams, a door, two window frames, and nails to build a two room house where a family can live. Local labor and often the returnees themselves build the shelter. Construction is supervised by UNHCR staff to assure quality standards. UNHCR has provided shelters to more than 1.2 million people, or more than 180,000 families since 2002.
I have chosen to focus the efforts of my foundation toward UNHCR’s shelter program in Afghanistan for two reasons:
