About the non-profit

PeaceTrees Vietnam started as a grassroots humanitarian project of the Earthstewards Network, a non-profit organization based on Bainbridge Island, Washington. As of January 2005, we gained approval from the IRS as a stand-alone non-profit organization with (501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.

PeaceTrees Vietnam is a humanitarian, non-profit, international non-government organization (NGO) leading efforts to remove landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in central Vietnam. Our mission is to work alongside the Vietnamese people to help build their capacity for a safe and healthy future for the children and families of Quang Tri Province.

PeaceTrees Vietnam was founded in 1995 by the family of Daniel Cheney, a young helicopter pilot who died in the Vietnam War in 1969. Its first clearance work and tree-planting mission to Quang Tri Province took place shortly after diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam were normalized. The project was spearheaded by the late Danaan Parry, a former physicist who co-founded the Earthstewards Network in 1980, and by his wife, Jerilyn Brusseau, a former restaurateur.

How do you find your funding and support?

PeaceTrees Vietnam gets its financial support from many individual donors and several charitable foundations. PeaceTrees Vietnam is supported by a growing community of donors, volunteers, businesses and other supporters. This includes Vietnam veterans or their surviving family members, humanitarians, journalists, entertainers, philanthropists and many other individuals. We also receives in-kind products and services from supportive businesses.

What's the niche?

PeaceTrees Vietnam supports Vietnamese efforts to transform the damaging impact of war into a healthy future for Vietnamese children by:

• sponsoring landmine and unexploded ordnance removal
• promoting landmine awareness and accident prevention educational programs
• engaging in tree-planting/citizen diplomacy programs for environmental restoration and friendship building
• offering victim assistance in the form of emergency medical treatment, long-term medical or health care, nutritional support, household economic support, transportation costs, and educational scholarships
• sponsoring economic and social development, community restoration and relocation projects

What's the biggest challenge?

Since 1975, more than 38,000 people in Vietnam have died from accidental explosions, and many more have been maimed for life. Many parcels of land remain useless because of the presence of dangerous ordnance (landmines or unexploded bombs). In Quang Tri Province, nearly every week a child is killed or injured from accidental explosions. The programs developed by PeaceTrees Vietnam, in close cooperation with the Vietnamese people, help remove the explosives, educate children about their dangers, restore an environment and a people devastated by war, and heal the relationship between people from the United States and Vietnam.

What's in store for the future?

PeaceTrees Vietnam's programs in Vietnam include:

• PeaceTrees Friendship Village (completed in September, 2001) which includes roads, utilities and community facilities for the resettlement of the 40-acre parcel at Khe May by more than 100 families.
• A 40-acre clearance project at the former U.S. Marine Corps combat base in Dong Ha.
• The Danaan Parry Landmines Education center, a facility that provides a space for accident prevention education and includes instructional displays and materials. Its location is in a park that was cleared and planted under PeaceTrees Vietnam's sponsorship. Completed: 1997.
• Two citizen diplomacy/friendship-building trips per year aimed at bringing together American, international and Vietnamese volunteers to plant trees or participate in other community restoration projects in Quang Tri Province.
• Development of a regional educational outreach program that brings children from throughout Quang Tri Province to the Danaan Parry Landmines Education Center.

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