A hands-on experience
A BMS World Mission project in Afghanistan is providing women with vital tailoring and embroidery skills, which is empowering them and giving them hope for the future.
What a difference a year makes! In the space of about 12 months, a BMS-supported project in Afghanistan can help transform illiterate and unconfident women into skilled business professionals.
Take one young wife recently helped. Already skilled in tailoring, she would be expected to make new clothes for all of her family for special occasions, such as the Muslim festival of Eid or a family wedding.
“Never did her family offer to pay her any fees or salary for her work, and she hadn’t the courage or confidence to ask,” says Jemma*, a BMS worker who supports the project.
“Through our course she not only learned to read, write and calculate figures, but she also learned that she could earn money for her tailoring work.
“Her teacher told her the ‘going rate’ for such work and encouraged her to expect to be paid. Slowly the student realised the opportunity she had to earn money and began to charge for tailoring work.
“Now she is happy with her new life and has money to spend on family or her own needs.” (Photo: a woman begins to make a tablecloth)
Valuable training
The project gives women like her opportunities to learn, grow and improve not only their lives, but also their expectations of life in the future.
The organisation’s second office elsewhere in Afghanistan is continually looking for new ways to encourage their students, and now has a supervisor and two teachers.
They have started, in partnership with another local NGO, a small shop in the city centre’s ladies’ market where students can place handmade products for sale to the public.
It’s valuable business skills training and will give them real life, ‘hands on’ experience.
“The shop is encouraging the students to think about market forces, and to understand that their products must be good quality, attractive or modern design, sensible colours and reasonably priced to attract a customer,” explains Jemma.
Using skills
Not all students are skilled in tailoring. Some prefer to crochet, embroider or do bead work and there are many opportunities to use all these skills in the Afghan culture, Jemma says.
“When someone gets married or has a baby it is always expected that they receive a package of handmade articles called a ‘Jes’ – from cradle-sized sheets, 
blankets and clothes for babies to tablecloths, cushion covers and even television covers for married couples.”
Other tasks include embroidering hems on women’s under-trousers (top photo) and crocheting the edging and corner motifs on thin, white gauze headscarves (middle photo).
Men get a similar treatment too, with embroidered designs on traditional shirts, which can take a month to complete (bottom photo).
Improving lives
Shopkeepers in Afghanistan are always looking to buy these handmade products – meaning continual opportunities to earn income for the women on the project.
Jemma says, “We are trying to teach our students to continue to look for opportunities to learn more and opportunities to earn more.
“It takes hard work, perseverance and initiative but with a bit of effort they can produce improved lifestyles and improved expectations for the future.
“For some of our students this year will be different from the past because of what they have struggled to learn and to earn throughout last year.
Help BMS transform the lives of even more women in Afghanistan, and other projects around the world. Give regularly as a 24:7 Partner or donate online today.
*not her real name
Photo credits:
Kate Holt/IRIN (Woman in blue)
Sayed Sarwar Amani/IRIN (Homework girl)
Jonathan Mallard (Clothing shop)
Ula Kapala (Croches and otton)
17/02/2012