WRI has provided a small grant to Afghan Women’s Education Center to start work with widows in Kabul thanks to support received from the congregation of the Emmanuel Church in Geneva.

EWD has supported research by the Afghan Women’s Educational Centre (AWEC) into the needs of vulnerable families in poorer areas of Kabul. The needs assessment project targeted women headed families, particularly widowed women and households where women were the breadwinner for whatever reason. The questions asked covered health issues, access to basic living and social protection, schools, employment and psychological support.

Participants were offered one-off support and financial assistance. Recommendations from the research project showed the need for short-term relief and development programs aimed at increasing self-sufficiency such as urgent winter-relief (plastic window coverings, wood or fuel.) Other types of assistance revealed included the need for short-term vocational training, community centres with provision for literacy classes, information and consultative facilities for women with emotional problems and for help with finding jobs. There was also a great demand for income generating projects coupled with self-employment facilities.

Now EWD is supporting the next phase of this project which will provide a base from which work will begin directly with widowed women. AWEC is proposing to employ a social worker to work with widowed women from a base established at the Centre for Street Children and Women (CSCW). There, The social worker will work alongside the team at the CSCW, acting as a resource person , and bringing together widows in a support group which will meet weekly.

This support group will focus on creating links to break down isolation among vulnerable women and provide psycho-social support and recreational activities. Ideas on ways to achieve self-sufficiency will also be explored. As the group progresses, suitable women will be identified for the administration of a micro-finance loan facility.

Our partners write:
23 years of war have intensified the social and economic constraints of afghan families in an already limiting social and cultural set-up. War has increased the economic responsibilities of women, by being widowed and suddenly being responsible for the breadwinning task. Though many women has been able to survive the extreme poverty, most are suffering from the traumatic experience of war and an increase social family violence as well as a state of low emotional wellbeing among families. According to a survey 45% of Afghan are suffering from psychosocial problems.

The new government of Afghanistan faces enormous challenges, one of which is the revival and rehabilitation of social services and creating jobs and income for women headed families. There is large need among women in urban centers who mainly depend on services, where there is not enough employment. To know better what areas of skill training need to be developed, what other interventions in health or employment creation area are needed, and what are the potential local sources to be exploited, AWEC wishes to conduct a need assessment survey with sensitive surveyors with counselling and community development expertise.

AWEC has gained lots of experience thanks to its past activity in community mobilization and counselling; we have basic data collection skills and know how to reach and identify vulnerable women and their areas of need. On the basis of this information we will be able to carry out a more systematic intervention; possibly a community center could be developed to address the needs of widows on more sustainable basis.