04 July 2012
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In pictures: Women artisan textile workers helped by Zardozi & UK aid in Kabul. Photographs: Alison Baskerville/DFID
Naima holds up a beautifully embroidered and sequinned top, showing it off proudly to catch the light.
It’s one of the new designs that she’s been working on, and she hopes it will sell well. She smiles with satisfaction, as the other women gathered around her voice their encouragement.
She’s one of hundreds of women in Afghanistan who’ve been helped by the Afghan organisation Zardozi, with support from UK aid. Zardozi specialises in linking chronically poor female home workers (tailors and embroiderers) to local markets through use of female sales agents.
Zardozi trains the sales agents and provides them with on-going market research and product design/development support. To date the project has led to job and income opportunities for more than 2,500 women in Kabul, Mazar and Jalalabad since 2006.
Mahroom is one of those who've benefitted from Zardozi's help. She worked for two years as an in-home worker, but for the last three years she has been a sales agent.
“Before Zardozi I didn’t have the confidence to speak to the stall holders, or even know where the market was”, she says.
“I got training through Zardozi on tailoring and design and business management and I made a sample which the stall holder liked. Now I have 25 women working for me.
“I have five children - three sons and two daughters. My husband is a daily labourer, which made things tough before. But Zardozi has allowed me to buy a sewing machine for my sons and some land for my family. Now my sons are tailors and my family is doing well.”
UK aid from the Department for International Development has supported the Zardozi project since November 2010, initially through a £100,000 grant to finance market research and product development work. In May 2011, further funding was agreed for another three years to expand the programme. The UK is committed to supporting the role of women in the future of Afghanistan, and this programme is part of a number of activities that aim to support Afghan women’s empowerment in areas such as education, livelihood opportunities and participation in public life.
Every stitch embroidered by hand
Shakila has been working on the Zardozi project for the past five years. She speaks English and has 25 women working for her. She meets with the women regularly in Kabul to discuss designs and share ideas about how to grow their businesses:
“I tell the women that it’s important the guild keeps up with the fashions in Kabul and I help the women make sure the clothes they produce sell well in the local markets of Kabul.”
Shakila also helps the director of the project with meetings and ideas for the future, along with translation skills for international visitors to the facility.
The director of Zardozi is Dr Kerry Jane Wilson. She explains the motivation behind the project:
“Zardozi – Markets for Afghan Artisans - grew out of the DACAAR Sewing Center. From 1984, the Sewing Center worked with Afghan families in refugee camps along the Pakistani border. The Sewing Center marketed women’s embroidered accessories and gift items, so that refugee families could afford schooling and basic health care. Zardozi is continuing that work now.”
“Every stitch of every Zardozi product is embroidered by hand. We connect highly skilled, rural Afghan women with markets. All of our trading income is reinvested to create employment and livelihoods. We believe that women with income are effective agents of development.”
Raiubra, a Hazara woman from Kabul, is another of those who’ve benefited from the project, despite some initial hesitancy within her own community.
“It was hard at the beginning as my neighbours were suspicious of my business”, she explains.
“But now most of them work with me from home producing clothes which I sell to the local market in Dashdabharti. We all find the income helpful for our families. It’s meant that my daughter was able to stay in school and now she’s graduated”.
Zardozi is currently operating in four Afghan provinces, and is expanding into Herat Province in November this year. It aims to reach up to 6820 women in total, to help them develop a sustainable income to support their families.