Bpeace in Kabul

Afghanistan's Minister of Women's Affairs Dr. Masooda Jahal and Toni. (We had a hard time finding a photo with Toni's eyes open, and not showing the streaks of mud on her slacks.)


Having trouble with the pix posting software today...so only 1 pix today, more hopefully tomorrow.

More assessments today. We recruited a woman from the provinces—Esmat from Heart, who we invited to join the Style Road Trip. She crochets skirts and doilies that use soda-bottle rings as a base. (Sounds awful, but looks pretty—trust us.) We are thrilled to have a lady from outside of Kabul in the Bpeace program. Esmat is committed to teaching the women in her area what she will learn on the SRT in New York.

While Gwendy was interviewing Latifa at the Afghan Art Gallery, and Paula was photographing, Ray was shopping the gallery. Latifa proudly displayed her unusual dress designs using embroidery accents and is hoping to open her own business with her designs which are popular with the local NGO community.

Laura and Paula visited with Hanifa…a former very prosperous businesswomen from Pakistan. Laura was trying to channel her into using her network to bring higher end fabrics to Afghanistan.

Jim and Laura spent quality time with Bakhtnazera, consulting on every aspect of her dress shop business. The problems are age old….attracting customers and managing cash flow. (Jim has operated at ends of the business spectrum in his career to date…from advising billionaire Ron Perlman on a megadeal to encouraging a dress shop owner on a side street in Kabul. What resume building.)

Kate met with Kamela and her partner Fahima and was blown away by these smart, gutsy ambitious women. They run a construction business which has two different enterprises. We learned of the oldest last June. It is a gabion business which employs 250 men and women who produce rock filled metal cage containers used to retain walls and floods. In the past several months they have launched a training center for carpentry and have trained 20 men and 20 women in the carpentry trade while providing literacy education. Their vision is to transform this school into a for profit enterprise which has synergy with the gabion business. They are working hard to obtain government and private contracts. Our translator was shocked and Kate amazed to see pictures of women running boards through table saws and hauling rocks. In this reconstructing country, Kamela and her partner have developed a business which taps into a real market opportunity. Kamela is so good that she is being increasingly asked to teach business skills to other budding male and female entrepreneurs. A consulting business is being born. Kamela and Fahima are breaking new ground. Bpeace will help them with business plan development and marketing.

Toni was out and about with Mercy Corps this morning, visiting a community center on the Kabul fringe. There she met 3 candle makers, working over a kerosene heater, who were thrilled to be creating something of their own. “I wake up in the night dreaming about candles,” said one of the ladies. Mercy Corps is hoping Bpeace will take these candle makers and 3 potters under our wing. While the women aren’t fast runners by our usual standards, they are fast runners in their community.

The entire Bpeace team, along with UNIFEM, and reps from the Afghan Women’s Business Council met with Dr. Masooda Jalal, the new Minister of Women’s Affairs who ran for President of Afghanistan last fall. Dr. Jalal has a strong vision, and was particularly interested in matching Afghan businesswomen with American businesswomen. (Hmmm….we may know of a group who can help with that.)

In between it all, Gwendy and Kate managed to shop…visiting Kabul’s gold district (who knew!). Don’t worry Steve, the shops were closed. They did manage to find a few old and rather fragrant textiles. (Rags for peace.)

There seemed to be a meeting of the Afghan old guard alumni association in traditional dress in the hotel tonight, so we fled for a farewell Kabul dinner at a local restaurant, WHERE THEY HAD WINE!!! That’s all Laura needed to let loose with a laughing jag, which made us all join in. A tradition here is to bundle up any leftover food, and give it to the poor—which of course we did.

Jim teaches again in the morning…called back by popular demand by the ladies to talk more about finance.

Our UN flight to Dubai is sometime in the afternoon, and we hope weather conditions allow us to take off. We’re already dreaming of a scotch on the rocks, and a hot fudge sundae.