“When women are fully involved, the benefits can be seen immediately: families are healthier; they are better fed; their income, savings, and re-investments go up. And what is true of families is true of communities, and eventually, the world.”
~
KOFI ANNAN,
7th Secretary General of the United Nations
ARZU STUDIO HOPE SOCIAL BENEFIT STRATEGY
Through direct, grassroots experience, we have learned that sustainable community development involves a holistic approach that fully engages women – a group who comprise more than half the human capital in Afghanistan. ARZU STUDIO HOPE (ARZU) works hard to deliver a complete package: education and job training, basic healthcare and clean water, and perhaps most importantly—hope for a better future.
Significantly, ARZU focuses on unleashing the power of the “Girl Effect” – first through mandatory school attendance and then increasingly through internships to broaden their skills beyond only rug weaving. Girls are the future mothers of the world. ARZU invests in girls to unleash hidden capacity in rebuilding Afghanistan.
EDUCATION
ARZU’s social contract requires that all children under the age of 15 attend school. Since most girls are behind the education standards for their ages, ARZU funds “Fast Track” classes, which allow them to catch up and be mainstreamed with their peers at a government school, wherever possible. Women in the household must attend ARZU education classes (set up in the village) that cover literacy, basic numeracy and units on health, hygiene, nutrition and human rights. ARZU Education Monitors work directly with both weaver families and the schools to insure compliance with the education requirements. Over 700 women and children currently attend ARZU’s literacy classes.
In addition to literacy training, ARZU creates paid apprenticeship programs to provide vocational training that creates local employment opportunities. Current examples of apprenticeships for women include Assistant Teachers to help students in the classroom and Medical Assistants to work at local clinics.
Thanks to generous support from the Beyond the 11th Foundation, ARZU has awarded three scholarships to young women, who graduated from high school, to continue higher education.
Read about Negine-ARZU's first scholarship recipient
Negine
In 2006, Negina, an 18-year old girl from Andkhoi, received ARZU’s first scholarship to continue her education beyond grade 12. ARZU played a significant role in her family’s decision to allow her to leave her village to study at the Sheberghan Midwife School about two hours away.
ARZU honored Negina at a ceremony and luncheon attended by more than thirty village and regional leaders. The impact of a young woman formally expressing her future goals to a largely male audience of elders helped create a precedent for other women and girls in the community.
For two years, Negina studied Saturday through Thursday, returning to Andkhoi to spend the Holy Day (Friday) with her family. At the end of February 2008, Negina graduated, having learned how to deliver babies and conduct prenatal and postnatal check-ups. She is now doing her residency in a hospital and hopes to return to Andkhoi to assist the women of her community.
The skills that Negina learned in school are vital to the health and welfare of Afghan women who live in a country with the third highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Since male doctors cannot treat female patients due to cultural and religious mores, Negina can now assist women who were previously unable to receive medical care.
TRIO OF COMMUNITY BUILDINGS
Despite the increased turmoil in Afghanistan, ARZU broke ground in June 2009 on our most ambitious initiative to date—the construction of a privately-funded “trio” of community facilities in Bamyan Province, including: a Women’s Community Center, a Community Garden/Greenhouse, and a Sports/Wellness Complex. As with all ARZU activities, these projects were developed with the full cooperation and engagement of the local women’s and men’s Shuras, or Councils, and are being built with local labor. Once completed, an estimated 250 new jobs will be created over a three-year period.
Read More
The Women's Community Center
Opened in January of 2010, This year-round multi-purpose compound houses a heated, indoor “laundromat” to eliminate the necessity of women washing clothes and dishes outdoors in frigid winter conditions, a tea room where women can socialize, two large classroom available for use by either men or women for literacy classes or meetings, a two-story loom room with four looms too large to fit in weaver homes, a courtyard walled for privacy and real flush toilets, a small dignity in daily life.
THE WOMEN'S COMMUNITY GARDEN
Opened in the summer of 2010, the Women's Community Garden includes individual plots tended by local women under the tutelage of horticulture experts; a greenhouse for experimentation and seed cultivation; and solar-powered dehydrators to preserve fruits and vegetables to provide supplemental nutrition during the long winter. Within the Community Garden, ARZU has successfully piloted several new businesses where women produce goods for local consumption, rather than for export. The two most promising new products include: low-carbon fuel briquettes made from recycled paper to burn for heat during the frigid winter months; and biosand water filters capable of removing 98% of the pathogens from drinking water.
THE SPORTS AND WELLNESS CENTER
We are currently seeking funding in order to start construction this spring of a Sports and Wellness Center, designed to address the physical and psychological needs of a gender segregated society, with particular emphasis on programs addressing the “Girl Effect.” Women and girls will have the freedom to engage in sports in a protected setting, while learning valuable life skills relating to team work, leadership and self-esteem. Walled outdoor space will include a soccer field and volleyball court, while the indoor recreation room will have ping-pong tables and space for exercise classes, health classes and socializing. To benefit the entire community, men and boys will have access to the complex at scheduled times when women are not present. We anticipate developing and offering domestic violence awareness training for men, women, boys and girls at this facility, in conjunction with the Bamyan Regional Hospital.
HEALTHCARE
ARZU strategically focuses on addressing Afghanistan’s highest public health priority – lowering the maternal death rate. Our healthcare services include weekly visits by our health monitors to weavers’ homes, 4-wheel drive transportation to clinics and an emergency mobile phone calling system for each village. ARZU accompanies pregnant women and newborns to clinics for check-ups, immunizations and emergency care. As a result of ARZU’s interventions, zero women under ARZU’s care have died during childbirth.
To help scale this maternal health outreach, ARZU partnered with the Ministry of Health to provide Assistant Midwife and Community Healthcare Worker training in Bamyan. Our first graduating class of 20 Midwives and 30 Community Healthcare Workers (CHWs) now provides health services to some 20,000 rural villagers. In 2010, ARZU will trained an additional 20 CHWs and midwives.
Read More About Additional ARZU Health Programs
Mobile Eye Camps
In 2006, we arranged for a mobile eye camp, run by the International Assistance Mission, to visit each village where more than 600 weavers and their family members received eye examinations to check vision and detect diseases. Hundreds of pairs of prescription glasses, reading glasses and eye medicines were dispensed.
Each phase of construction provided opportunities for new apprenticeships for men working under the supervision of the engineer in charge of the projects and the master tradesmen, including in carpentry, bricklaying and general construction.
Winter Nutritional Supplement Program
In early 2008, in response to the worldwide economic crisis and rising commodity prices, ARZU implemented a short-term nutrition program to meet the immediate and dire needs of its families by providing monetary and nutritional supplements during the harsh winter months. While this provided short-term relief, ARZU’s objective is to provide a more sustainable solution to this epidemic with the construction of our Community Garden Center. The goal of this multi-phase project is to train the community in horticultural best practices for growing fruits and vegetables to help meet the basic need for access to improved nutrition.
Health Workshops
In spring 2008, ARZU piloted our first five-day health workshop to the women in our Kabul weaver community, covering hygiene, nutrition, pre- and post-natal care, immunizations and basic first aid. Based on its success, this program was expanded to Bamyan and Andkhoi. At the suggestion of workshop participants, this curriculum will be incorporated into the standard ARZU literacy classes starting in 2010, be available to over 750 students.
Work Safety Program
In 2007, ARZU implemented a worker safety program to address ailments common to carpet weavers. Our Health Monitors were trained to identify the symptoms of TB and bring women to clinics for TB tests. We also provide surgical masks to prevent the inhalation of fibers and fingerless gloves to keep weavers’ hands warm in cold weather.
CLEAN WATER INITIATIVES
In Afghanistan, where 75% of people lack access to clean water, ARZU is piloting innovative ways to provide relief for this major health problem. In March 2008, we completed the construction of a water catchment tank in one arid village in northern Afghanistan. In 2010, ARZU will pilot a household water-filter mold-making apprenticeship program in Bamyan. This program will provide economic empowerment opportunities while simultaneously addressing and correcting the water needs in this region.
EXPEDITIONARY ECONOMICS
Since the early days as a rug-making project empowering destitute women weavers, ARZU has evolved over the past six years into an insight-led innovation laboratory for design thinking. ARZU has transformed into a learning laboratory for Expeditionary Economics, a term used by the U.S. Military to describe its framework for economic stability and development in post-conflict environments like Afghanistan. ARZU believes that the path to peace can only be found in sustainable, local, low-tech, low-cost, entrepreneurial, and economically based solutions. ARZU’s new goal, therefore, is to innovate and validate replicable, turnkey protocols that can be shared with and scaled by others. CEO Connie K. Duckworth is a member of the working group at West Point, which is developing the military’s manual on grassroots economic development in conflict zones, and has provided advice the U.S. Marines and to Task-Force Brinkley at DOD. At the same time, ARZU’s all local Afghan team is assisting the Provincial Governor of Bamyan and UNAMA, and has played an important role in the U.S. Embassy’s greening initiative in Kabul.