Afghanistan Women Council

JANUARY 4, 2008
Report on the Graduation of 100 Women and their 150 Children after One Year of Training

Afghanistan Women Council (AWC) is a non-governmental, non-political, non-profit, non-sectarian Charity Organization founded in Peshawar, Pakistan to support the Afghan Refugees in 1986 by the efforts of a group of Afghan women led by Ms. Fatana Ishaq Gailani with an aim to assist Afghan women and children. The predominant objective of the organization is to empower women by building their capacity, improving their health, education and living conditions, and strengthening their socio-economic status in society by their multi-lateral involvement in development activities. AWC works for human rights, women’s and children’s rights, peace building, democracy and women’s empowerment.

AWC has been running an awareness program for 300 women and a Micro-Finance program for 3000 women in Kandahar, Jalalabad and Kabul for the past 4 years. This program was financially supported by the British Government via their Embassy in Kabul and its Micro-Finance program will continue for one more year in 2008.100 widows and the most vulnerable students and their 150 children graduated after completing a year-long comprehensive training program including the following subjects:
Basic Education includes: Literacy, math, health & parenting, conflict resolution & peace-building, environmental education, community leadership & rehabilitation, human rights, women’s rights, rule of law, transitional justice, good governance & civil society, democracy, peace development and reconciliation. Also, AWC specializes in community development, health support, an Alternative Livelihood Program and small and medium-sized enterprise development which has helped thousands of Afghan women since 1986.
HIV/AIDs Awareness: Awareness on HIV/AIDs is given to women on how to protect themselves and their families from HIV/AIDs. It has been offered to women since 2005 in all of AWC’s areas of work.
Environmental Protection: Women receive awareness on how to protect their forest, their land from erosion and their homes from destruction by floods. They learn how to grow plants and keep their environment clean. They also get information on threats to the earth’s environment such as global warming, air pollution, and threats to our oceans and marine life. Energy topics are also covered..
Psychosocial Support and Counseling: Psychosocial support in the form of Individual and group counseling is offered. Support also focuses on raising self-esteem and self-confidence, improving inter-personal and inter-group relations as well as stress, anger and grief management.
Skills Sharing Workshops: Women share knowledge, experiences, and lessons learned in project related areas.
Steering Committee Meetings: Committees oversee project planning, development, implementation and monitoring.
Working Group Meetings: These meetings involve a detailed analysis of women’s needs, with a focus on vocational training and income generation.
Micro-Finance Committee Meetings: Project planning, development, implementation and monitoring related to micro-finance are covered.
Vocational Training: Training in sewing, knitting, handicrafts, honey bee keeping, vegetable gardening, soap making, sweet and pickle making and poultry raising are offered.
Introduction to Micro-Finance Training: This introductory training offers an explanation of the structure and purpose of micro-finance, including loans, savings programs and village organizations.
Home Visits: Meetings are held with participants and their families to explain the program and to gain support for women’s participation.
Income Generation Training: This training deals with marketing, management, small business strategies, basic accounting, entrepreneurship, legal and gender issues.
Village Organization meetings: Women form a community to manage credit and savings and support one another in the development of their small businesses.
Small Group meetings: Women work together, jointly guaranteeing loans and repayment, and marketing and supporting each other’s businesses.
Micro-Finance: While participants were enrolled in the vocational training component of the project, members of the Micro-Finance Committee conducted home visits to establish the financial needs of all project participants and to further explain the concepts of savings, loans and interest. Women were trained in (1) rules, regulations and set up of micro-finance, (2) marketing, (3) trading, (4) benefits of savings, and (5) how to choose a marketable business. During the micro-finance training, participants were divided into small groups called Village Organizations. These groups function as forums for support and communication, as well as being an effective and transparent mechanism for loan repayments. Micro-credit participants embarked on a mandatory savings period. Upon successful completion of the savings period, participants were given their first loans and are closely monitored and supported to launch businesses of their choosing. Each loan (and subsequent loan) is distributed on the basis of the successful repayment of the previous loan.

Afghanistan Women Council celebrated the graduation of its 100 participants in Kandahar city on Dec. 27, 2007. Graduates, high ranking officials of the Afghan Government in Kandahar, women from NGOs, UN, PRT, Women Affairs Ministry and people of different walks of life participated in the seminar.
The program started with the recitation of few verses from the Holy Quran and then the following people gave their speeches:
S/N Name Organization
1. Mimuna Tariq head of AWC Kandahar,
2. Runa Tareen, head of Women Affairs dept. Kandahar,
3. Mulana Hanifi, Head of Islamic Shora Kandahar,
4. Hussain Aziz, Deputy Economic Deprt. Kandahar,
5. M. Omar Sati, head of the Human Rights commission, Kandahar,
6. Zarghona Kakar, Member of Provincial Shora, Kandahar,
7. Shahida Hussain, head of the Women Shora, Kandahar,
8. Najiba Jan, Member of the Human Rights commission, Kandahar,
9. Nimatullah Nalaan, responsible for the cultural law dept. of the south-western zone, Kandahar,
The main concern of participants was the security situation in the country which gets worse with the passage of a single day and affects the poor people, especially women in the countryside. International Aid organizations can’t work in the countryside. International and national traders are not interested in making investments in Afghanistan, therefore, poverty is rising and jobless people in the countryside are joining the Taliban for a loaf of bread. However, Afghanistan is an agricultural country. No support is given to the farmers for improved production and increased income. Therefore, Afghanistan is more dependent on their neighboring countries and faces inflation on various export items periodically.

There is a lot of propaganda from the high ranking authorities at the national and international level to bring peace to Afghanistan but nothing has happened to promote peace except Mr. Mujadidi’s classic system in which people come to the government with their weapons and the next day the same people are with the opposition again. This is going on again and again just to get money. Also, the international community and the Afghan government use propaganda to stop poppy cultivation but there are no significant alternatives suggested yet. Also no one is arrested for the drug trafficking during the past 6 years of the new established government.

Most of the Ministries working in the countryside cannot spend even 50% of their annual budget because of the unsatisfactory security situation in the country. The international community and the Afghan Government claim to have brought about women’s development and women’s empowerment, gender equality, and the elimination of violations against women, but in practice millions of U.S. dollars have disappeared only in the name of women’s capacity building and no one is brought to justice. Also the Ministry of Women Affairs is not in the position to do anything fundamental for the empowerment of women.

High unemployment, increasing poverty, a poor administration system based on compromises with warlords paves the road for the Taliban to speed up its activities. Neighboring countries and the drug mafia find it too easy to interfere in Afghan affairs. This creates distance between the government and the people and the gap is difficult to fill because it requires hard work and the strong efforts by professional, honest and patriotic individuals which are unfortunately lacking. Therefore, to protect Afghanistan from more destruction, to stop international interference, to stop poppy cultivation and to put an end to Al Qaida or the Taliban, the following recommendations are offered before the situation gets totally out of control:
The international forces based in Afghanistan must coordinate their activities with the Afghan National Military Forces.
All those involved in drug trafficking must be brought to justice.
Proper reformation should be made in the government system to bring the right people to service and to bring the corruption level down.
Proper negotiation must take place with the opposition to ensure peace in the country.
Strong attention must be given to the empowerment of women through their capacity building.
Suitable means of support must be identified for all the jobless people in the country.
The program ended with serving a lunch,
In solidarity,
Fatana Ishaq Gailani
Founder and Chairwomen AWC