Afghan Hands
How the American high-end fashion business is creating a design for a better life for the widows of the decades of conflict in Afghanistan.
“The first time I bought them in they were shocked by the sheerness of these things… and they were shaking their heads, saying ‘These Americans – I don’t know what they want!’”
The conflicts in Afghanistan over the last 30 years have caused up to 2 million deaths – creating a generation of widows and orphans in the country. But Matin Maulawizada, whose own family escaped to the USA during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, has returned to the country of his birth to help some of these widows. Arriving from the US bearing designs commissioned by a niche-market fashion house, his company, Afghan Hands, capitalizes on the skill of these women with a needle and thread and is now not only earning them an income, but teaching them literacy and numeracy as well.PRS BLOG
Kabul. Hot, dusty and unusually humid. Guns must be left at the door...
No entry with weapons to any eating establishment or guest house. About to go out after lunch to shoot a sequence with Afghan Hands originator to ask what he would do with the money if he won World Challenge 09.
Interviewed a lady today - Qandi Jan who is a beneficiary of Afghan Hands in Kabul. She is very poor, the sole earner in her household which includes a brother who has psychological problems and is sometimes violent. She wore a burka all through the Taliban era but three years ago she decided to cut it up. The pieces are now sown into every Afghan Hands shawl as a symbol of women's freedom against oppression. After the interview we went to an ice cream parlour. Nur Jan, the Kabul Afghan Hands project manager and I, because we were women, were ushered behind a curtain into a window-less space at the back of the shop while Matin - Afghan Hands founder and our driver sat on the street side watching a Hindi film. The ice cream was delicious but may regret it later....
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