TRENDS
Breaking traditional moulds
AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
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A novel project has introduced women from destitute families in Kabul to innovative employment alternatives.
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Worthwhile choice: Afghanistan's new businesswomen at work.
THIRTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD Saleha is a businesswoman; a young entrepreneur trading in traditional crafts of gemstones, of polishing and cutting quartz and lapis stones for jewellery. Yet when she goes to the market to buy raw material or seek a price for her finished products, the reaction is more disbelief than respect, more comments than business. The reason being that Saleha is an Afghan woman trying to do business in Afghanistan, entering the male-dominated marketplace in a patriarchal society.
Women like Saleha are not expected to work outside their homes, let alone work in a male bastion. Even less is it expected that they will form a company, an all-woman company and enter the market as entrepreneurs. Yet that is exactly what Saleha and her partners in the Sultan Razia Gems Cutting Company are doing under a project of the Italian Cooperation, the Italian government's aid agency.
Innovative alternatives
A novel project that seeks to take women out of the traditional jobs like teaching, tailoring or beauty saloons, the project has introduced women from the most destitute families in one of the poorest districts of Kabul to innovative alternatives. Along with the group of women launching their gem cutting business are three other groups of women — one running a canteen, the first canteen in the ministry of women's affairs; another group producing solar lanterns and the third repairing mobile phones.
Some of these jobs are highly skilled; solar lanterns require working with intricate circuits, repair of mobile phones calls for skill with microchips, while gem cutting is all about precision. Quality control must also be high if the women are to compete in the market, especially when it comes to catering.
The first decision, says Monica Matarazzo, the nodal person for Italian Cooperazione, was to opt for something more challenging and original than the usual trades. The aid agency then approached the community elders to choose the most destitute families. This way not only would they reach the right people but also secure community backing for a project that might have invoked suspicion because of its foreign origin. Four hundred and fifty families were interviewed before 53 beneficiaries were chosen, many of them widows with no means of support. A training centre was set up in the district itself so that women could walk to work and their families could see where they were working, making it easier to secure family support and approval. The centre also provided a crèche where young children could stay while their mothers worked. Literacy classes, lunch and training were provided for one and a half years before the women were ready to start their business.
One of the beneficiaries is 40-year-old Asifa. Earlier she had a fairly comfortable middle-class existence with her husband, a senior official in radio TV Afghanistan, the state run broadcaster. All that changed when his programmes were considered anti-Taliban. When threats did not deter him they knocked on the door and shot him on the doorstep. With five girls and two sons Asifa struggled for years sewing clothes to make a living. Today she considers herself a skilled professional in the gem cutting business.
Saleha, Afisa and six other women who form the company have also benefited from Indian expertise. The gem cutting machines were brought from India. An instructor from India came to teach them and some of them have also travelled to Jaipur to learn the business at first hand.
Social contacts
Not all the women have been victims of Taliban. Fahima's father was disabled when he was shot in the eye by the gilam jam, as the men of former Northern strongman General Rasheed Dostum are known for their habit of rolling up their victims in gilams or carpets. Fahima, who is 19 years old, has been trained as a mobile repair technician, the job she chose of the four that were on offer. She and Arzoo, another pretty 17-year-old, tease each other. The centre is not just a job, but a place where they can meet and talk every day, a workplace camaraderie that few women in Afghanistan have access to.
Her older colleague Bibigul was her age when her husband disappeared one day never to return. Her son was killed and she has struggled to bring up her two daughters doing odd jobs until this centre opened. Nafisa is the sole earner for her family of four and the 41-year-old now makes solar lanterns as do 32-year-old Sajida and 35-year-old Shakila.
In Mushtari's office, the canteen in the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA), Merafzon and her colleagues are almost mobbed at lunchtime. The MOWA employees never had it so good before.
Nooria Banwal, the director of Economic Empowerment in the Ministry, is one among hundreds who has stopped by for lunch. Earlier she and her colleagues had to spend time and energy putting together a scratch meal on a stove in the corner of the office. Now she gets a good hot meal at very reasonable prices.
So great is the demand that the employees of Mushtari are also being trained in the art of saying `no'. Though food is plentiful, the favourites, like the balonee (Afghan paranthas) run out quickly leaving disappointed customers chafing.
Only the first step
For most of these women however the training is just the first step. Mushtari, the catering company, still relies on men to do the shopping and oversee. In Razia Sultan gem cutting company, Saleha has to do heavy battle when she goes out buying stones.
The mobile repair centre's Bibigul and Shakila who makes solar lanterns both have to hear taunts for going to work. At each step of the way the women are going to have to negotiate their way through an overwhelmingly male dominated culture that shows scant kindness to women stepping out of their traditional alternatives. Yet for all of them it has been worthwhile.
"What is the choice?" asks Bibigul. "Should I sit at home because of those who pass remarks? Here at least I sit together with other women and earn a living."
"We like working together. We understand each other's pain, the problems, share tea and our sorrows" says Atifa. The warp and weft of the workplace is perhaps as important as the capacity to earn for Afghanistan's new businesswomen.
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