Prince's Secret Charity: Helping Afghan Orphans - Hollywoodreporter

The musician quietly funneled tens of thousands of dollars to a charity devoted to assisting the poorest Afghan orphans and demanded his support remain a secret.

Check out the donor list on the website of PARSA, a respected international aid organization that works with orphans, war wounded and the disabled of Afghanistan and you’ll spot the usual suspects: the American and German embassies, the International Organization for Migration and an outfit called War Child Canada.

But here’s a surprising name to add to the list: Prince.

“Prince was really invested in orphans,” says Seattle native Marnie Gustavson, executive director of  Physiotherapy and Rehabilitative Support for Afghanistan (PARSA), who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in a phone interview from Kabul, where she has lived for the past 12 years. “The reason I'm letting it be known is to honor him. And I am no longer sworn to secrecy.”

The news of Prince’s redoubtable and longstanding charitable efforts began to trickle out more fully in the wake of his death on April 21, but the extent and breadth of his interests seem to grow steadily larger by the day and, geographically at least, more eclectic.

Still, few would have expected Afghanistan.

A landlocked country of 30 million that has been wracked by war for going on four decades, it’s one of the poorest nations in the world, still struggling to emerge from a decade of Soviet occupation, years of brutal civil war, oppression by the Taliban and, most recently, the continuing fallout of a well-intentioned but uneasy relationship with the U.S.  

For the last half-dozen years, Prince quietly funneled thousands of dollars to help rekindle one of PARSA’s signature initiatives: an 85-year-old Afghan Scouting program, whose members and mentors are all orphans. The Afghan Scouts is designed to empower Afghan kids and steer them away from the lure of extremist groups like ISIS. Started in 1931, the program was largely dormant during periodic bouts of war, but has been growing again recently. - Read More at the Prince

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