Livelihood support programme benefit women in Afghanistan

May 2006: One hundred and twenty-five women are no longer having to struggle to survive in Afghanistan's northern province of Faryab after interventions by an International Organisation on Migration (IOM) programme to learn new skills and start businesses.

The group, all of them widows or vulnerable women, were identified for assistance by the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs. Among them was Nadia, a widowed mother of five whose only means of earning a living beforehand was through washing clothes and cleaning houses. Through the programme, Nadia was provided with tools to make ghilums, traditional Afghan rugs.

"Now everything is better for me. I can work from home and spend more time with my children," Nadia explained. Before joining the programme, it was a struggle to buy household goods. Now she can easily purchase flour, tea, soap and clothes for her children by selling three ghilums a month at bazaars and to shopkeepers.

With one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world following decades of war, Afghanistan has more than one million widows. Instability and a restrictive Taliban regime had also prevented women from having access to education and skills training that could have helped them to support themselves and their families.

"Afghanistan is a peaceful place now where widows can pass through life with these kinds of projects," said 38-year-old Zareena, another participant on the programme that also provided literacy, health education, and human rights classes. As important as earning more money for Zareena was the new found ability to read to her children and the basic health education she has received.

"I learned how to prevent illnesses through washing dishes with soap," she explained. "I do not have a TV and rarely leave my home. This type of education was the only opportunity we had to learn."

As well as learning to make ghilums, the livelihood programme in Faryab gave a group of 25 women with children a cow each and some animal care training, allowing them to sell milk and diary products such as cheese and butter at markets.

"Not a lot of people have cows so families have limited access to dairy products in Faryab," according to Sophie Nuon, IOM programme officer in the Faryab capital of Maimana. "Most families consume rice, beans, bread and can only afford to eat meat every so often. This project not only gave these women a chance to generate income but is also improving their nutrition." Many of these women are also able to exchange their dairy products for other goods with community members.

Other IOM programmes targeting women in Afghanistan have included computer and English language classes for vulnerable women with some level of higher education. More than 100 female students, teachers and workers in government ministries participated in this project. The UN's World Food Programme partnered with IOM on the project to provide food rations to students and to teachers working on an unpaid, voluntary basis.

Funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Australian government, the livelihood and education support activities are part of a wider IOM programme to assist Afghanistan's internally displaced people (IDPs). After helping more than 400,000 IDP to return home or to resettle elsewhere, the programme will close by the end of this month due to lack of funds.

"There are still 150,000 IDPs left in the country, an estimated 40,000 of whom need assistance to return home. We not only take people home but we help with initial reintegration through income generating activities for the most vulnerable such as widows and the establishment of water projects in a country that often suffers from drought. The premature closing of the programme means there will be a lot of work left undone. We could be helping so many more Nadias and Zareenas," said Peter Sorensen, IOM Afghanistan's chief of mission.

Source: International Organization for Migration (IOM)
Acknowledgement: South Asian Media Net / Relief Web

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