Established in 1995, I became aware of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) in 1996 when they were still helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan. I was very impressed by their grassroots, community-based approach to providing education, training and health services to Afghans, particularly to women and children. AIL actually listened to the Afghans they were working with and provided services that they requested and, in turn, asked for input from the people. In this way, a partnership was formed and the community members had a stake in the project. Since the beginning of their programs in 1996, with a budget of $30,000, AIL has now grown to serve over 350,000 women and children annually in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and has reached over 8 million Afghans since 1996. They are a visionary organization that has provided the basic building blocks for the Afghans themselves to transform their country.

Creating Hope International (CHI) is a unique organization that recognizes that indigenous organizations often know what a community needs and do better work in helping the people in their community to meet their needs. Rather than try and tell local organizations what to do,CHI provides support to local organizations, at their request, around the world to assist those organizations to do their work more effectively. Presently, CHI provides technical support to the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), one of the largest female-led Afghan NGOs in Afghanistan. It also supports a project with Tibetan refugees in India and healing groups in the U.S.