Women for Women International Helps Iraqi Women Rebuild Lives

21 November 2006

(Women for Women International creates a new kind of entrepreneur)

Washington -- Active in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, Women for Women International (WFWI) helps widowed survivors of decades of conflict gain confidence and vocational skills. The organization began helping women victims of war in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992.

Now working in nine countries, WFWI helps women and their families in conflict zones re-establish stability in their lives. (See related article.)

The WFWI Afghanistan chapter has trained nearly 9,000 women in job skills, literacy, rights awareness and business management since 2002.

Pashtoon is one of these new Afghan entrepreneurs, a widow who struggled to raise four children after her husband was killed by a rocket in 1992. She was trained as a beautician in a WFWI program, something she always wanted to do, but had no opportunity. The training helped restore economic security to Pashtoon, who now cares for an orphaned grandson. “I know that women can learn about their rights which have been ignored by society. These rights can get women out of calamity,” Pashtoon told a WFWI staff member.

Zainab Salbi, founder of WFWI, sees economic stability as the key to helping families fractured by war. “They also need the social and political awareness to complement that, which brings confidence and self-esteem and all of those things,” Salbi told USINFO. The combination can create “an active citizen, where she is not only earning income but helping in the decision making within the household and the community and voting,” Salbi said, adding, “We need to address the complexities of people's lives.”

Pat Morris, WFWI program director, who recently visited Afghanistan, told USINFO that Afghan women see positive changes. One women reported to Morris that now “she can talk to father and brother about what’s happening on news. Surprisingly, her father is so proud she can have this conversation with him; she can talk about issues.”

Although including men in the program is an important part of the WFWI approach, the all-local staff is primarily female. “When women come together they are dealing with other women,” Morris said. Tribal leaders are open to them because traditions are respected.  But she added that change comes about “by what the women do themselves and what women and men in partnership do together.”

Nearly 200 women completed beauty school in Kabul, Parwan and Kapisa provinces. Jewelry making in gem-rich Afghanistan is another popular enterprise. Women learn to cut fluorite for bracelets and necklaces. They learn tailoring. They open bakeries. They make shoes and purses at home.

Training in business skills helps women successfully market their goods. A microcredit program provides startup funding. Since 2004 nearly $750,000 has been lent to borrowers with a 99 percent repayment rate.

Salbi said there is progress in Kabul, but rural areas are more difficult. The Taliban’s resurgence in some provinces has a negative impact on women, as does drug trafficking. Salbi noted poppy growers indebted to traffickers are selling their daughters for debt relief.

The U.S. government is concerned about the rise in drug trafficking, and addresses it through a USAID program that assists Afghan women through microfinancing. “As of October 2006 we have lent over 139,000 women small loans,” a USAID spokeswoman told USINFO. The loans are usually for women in agriculture. “It’s also helping with alternative livelihoods and an alternative to working in the poppy fields,” she said. USAID supports training teachers, midwives and health workers of both sexes. Asked about the overall view in Afghanistan, the official said, “It’s going to take time, but we are making progress.”

Individual WFWI sponsors are put in touch with the women they sponsor. Often they exchange letters: a woman in the American Midwest and a woman in Kabul write to each other, describing their different lives.

Besides individual donors, Women for Women International receives funding from organizations, corporations and governments, including the U.S. State Department. WFWI recently was awarded the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize of $1.5 million. The award money will go toward building permanent women’s centers where circumstances on the ground allow it, according to Salbi.

“We can’t talk about the peace and democracy and all of these things as a theoretical concept. We have to talk about it as a tangible process that needs to be delivered to the women,” Salbi said.