Breaking Ground: From Landmines to Grapevines, One Woman’’s Mission to Heal the World

Both a memoir and a call to action, this book is a gripping account of the author's quest to eradicate landmines from the face of the earth.

Heidi Kuhn's Breaking Ground is at once an inspirational memoir and a passionate essay about her lifelong struggle to eradicate fields of landmines and replace them with agricultural projects that bring families in war-torn regions relief from poverty and a way out of conflict.

Breaking Ground offers a compelling path out of terror and a way to heal the wounds of war. Here is an "economics of peace" grounded in practical solutions to entrenched global problems. The book is written from the point of view of a mother of four with a strong background in business and a humanitarian vocation. Kuhn is a woman of faith who seized an unprecedented opportunity to join an international cause: from the basement of her California home, Kuhn created a nongovernmental organization of groundbreaking impact. The result of her efforts, Roots of Peace, has propelled her into a leading role on the world stage, where she takes her place at the table with ecretaries-general, the pope, prime ministers, and presidents to champion the needs of families and children throughout the world. In telling her own story of engagement, Kuhn inspires ordinary people to join together to do the extraordinary--beat swords into ploughshares and turn seeds of hate into seeds of peace.

Heidi Kuhn is the founder and CEO of Roots of Peace. She created this non-governmental organization to remove the scourge of landmines and bring the land back into productive use for the next generation now living in landmine-affected countries. Thanks to Roots of Peace, over one hundred thousand landmines and UXOs have been removed since September 11, 2001. Heidi has been married to her husband, Gary, for over 25 years. They have four children.