Notes from the Field: GGP Welcomes Kandahar Treasure as its Newest Partner in Afghanistan
On International Women’s Day this year, Afghan women took a significant step. Organized by Rangina Hamidi, the director of GGP’s newest community-based partner, Kandahar Treasure, 1,500 Afghan women marched for peace in the city of Kandahar.
In 2003, Ms. Hamidi returned to her home country of Afghanistan, after fleeing with her family in 1981, to lead the Women’s Income Generation Project for Afghan’s for Civil Society (ACS), a development organization in Kandahar. Five years on, her work with ACS has grown into Kandahar Treasure, a small sustainable business with a big social impact.
This spring, GGP is featuring exquisitely hand-embroidered scarves made by the women of Kandahar Treasure. Ms. Hamidi recently met with GGP staff where she described the process of making each of these scarves and the broader social impact that Kandahar Treasure is having on the lives of women and families in Afghanistan.
GGP: Start by telling us more about the scarves, themselves — how are they made?
RH: The scarves are completely handmade. The only tools used are a needle, thread, and a pair of scissors to make an initial cut in the fabric before tearing it from the bolt. The fabric is cotton from Pakistan and the thread is silk from India. We wish we could source materials from Afghanistan, and maybe some day in the future we will be able to, but for now, we simply have no access to good raw materials here.
Three women are involved in the making of each scarf. There are women in one household that are responsible for hemming each scarf. Even this is not done by machine. As you can see, there is a tiny row of eyelets along each edge. This is where they have pulled out a few threads from the fabric. After pulling a thread, they fold the edges over and stitch along the line where the thread was pulled. This way there is a perfectly straight hem and this beautiful eyelet detail without a sewing machine. It takes two or three hours to hem each piece.
After the scarves are hemmed, Kandahar Treasure distributes them to other women in the area. The embroidery and mirror work for each scarf is completed entirely by one woman. This is because each woman’s hand has a slightly different quality; so all scarves follow the same pattern, but each has an individual touch. For these particular scarves we are making for GGP, one woman will spend between two and four hours a day over a period of a week to ten days to finish.
After the embroidery is completed, Kandahar Treasure brings the scarves back to the office where women clean them, iron them, and pull the threads on the edges to make the fringe.
GGP: Tell us more about the embroidery. It is incredibly intricate!
RH: Yes, the embroidery from this region is very special. The women do not use drawn patterns. Instead, they make each design by counting the threads in the fabric on which they are embroidering. The technique is called Khamak and is thought to be the source of a number of embroidery patterns and techniques across South Asia and the Middle East. It is one of the reasons it is so important to help preserve—we rely on the women to pass Khamak embroidery on to the next generation.
GGP: Where do the artisans work?
RH: We offer any woman who would like the opportunity to work full time at our offices. These women work a full eight-hour day and receive a monthly salary. But most women work from home because many women’s families still prohibit them from leaving their homes or because they are concerned for their safety. In this case we drop off the materials to each woman’s house and pick up the finished products. The women who work from their homes are paid per item depending on the difficulty level of a project.
GGP: Speaking of safety, what about you? Kandahar remains the most violent area of Afghanistan. You are taking a lot of personal risk. Do you ever think about leaving Kandahar?
RH: I know. I have thought about it, but I wouldn’t leave. This is what I want to be doing. When I see the impact being made on the lives of so many women, I wouldn’t be able to do anything else. With the economic situation as it is, the women say, “if we don’t have this work, we don’t know what will happen to us.”
GGP: Tell us about the impact are you seeing in the lives of women because of this project?
RH: The economic impact is enormous. Unemployment rates in Kandahar are very high. There is so little economic opportunity for women or men, so for many families, this is now their best option for an income.
When we calculate how much women are paid for their labor, most are earning at least $1 (50 Afghanis) per day or $30 over a month for this work—although it is often more depending on how many items they are producing from home. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is income that they would otherwise have no access to. With $30, a woman can buy food to feed her entire family for that month. However, in most households, there are several women (maybe 5-7), so with each woman earning this money, there is opportunity for a significant increase in quality of life. With the additional income women can pay their rent which is often $40-$60 a month for a poor family. And they can take care of childcare and health needs that they could not address before. I would say that 90 percent (90%) of the women are spending all of their income in the home to meet basic needs because their husbands are not earning an income or they are widowed. So many women in Kandahar have lost husbands and male relatives to the violence.
I should also add that these women are earning more from us than they would if they were making the same products for someone else in the region. It is a committee of the women themselves who set the wages to make sure they are fair and livable.
GGP: What are some of the other benefits for women participating in Kandahar Treasure?
RH: The income is important, but in Afghanistan, it is only one part of our mission. For the women who come to work at the office, it is also helpful for them to have a place where they can talk with each other, feel freer, feel less self-conscious of their identity as a woman. They can laugh. Not to mention, earning an income is an opportunity for the women to gain more power and freedom at home. They begin to feel stronger and more able to stand up for themselves.
As part of Kandahar Treasure we also offer women and girls access to literacy training and health education in their homes. So now women have access to education, and to information on how to care for their children and meeting very basic health needs, where they did not have this access before.
GGP: Can you help us understand the challenges an illiterate Afghan women faces in daily life?
RH: Well, a recent story: one woman needed to go to a health clinic. She was venturing out on her own and someone else had written a note with the name and address so that she could ask people on the street for directions if she needed them. She stopped to ask a group of young men to point her in the right direction and as a joke they sent her to the wrong building. When she walked in, it was a bathhouse for young men. This is completely humiliating for an Afghan woman. And she would have been spared the humiliation if she could have read the street signs or the sign on the outside of the building.
But more generally, as you know, the situation for women in Afghanistan is still bad. Not being able to read only adds to their isolation and lack of access to information. Women and girls were prohibited from going to school under the Taliban. When women cannot read, they cannot see the street signs; they cannot access basic information on caring for their children; they cannot access information on their basic human rights. It is one more barrier to their freedom. Did you know Afghanistan is maybe the only country where suicide rates for women are higher than for men? Women don’t just face insecurity from violence on the street; they face violence in their homes from their husbands and in-laws. That’s why our work is so important — the income, the education, they are steps to decrease violence and increase freedom and self-esteem.
GGP: You helped to organize the peace march in Kandahar for International Women’s Day this year. Participation seems like a very courageous act for many women considering how insecure the city is today.
RH: Yes. It is courageous. But the women are fed up. They wanted to do this. The security situation continues to get worse. Many people feel hopeless. Most international NGOs have shut down their offices. The security is terrible. Unemployment is incredibly high. Many have lost their husbands or brothers or sons to the violence. They are tired of the deaths.
