Rebuilding Afghanistan Foundation (RAF) is a New York-based 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization. The Foundation was developed upon the premise that education is essential for the Afghan society to flourish, for its people to become self-reliant and for the nation to exist as a free and independent state. RAF brings education to the Afghan children by funding a variety of U.S. based charities engaged in building schools or developing educational projects in Afghanistan. Schools are the central component of each project funded by the foundation; however, the foundation may also engage in related projects, deemed critical to enable the construction of a school (ie. developing a well so the newly constructed school can have water). In additional to building schools, RAF seeks to foster cultural ties between the Afghan children, studying in RAF funded schools, and their American counterparts. RAF does this by developing programs such as pen-pal exchanges and art exchanges with schools located in the New York tri-state region.