Women in Afghanistan

During the previous 36 hours of flying and waiting in various terminals leading up to our stay in Kabul, Jeff and I talked about promoting women's rights as the cornerstone of this PeaceTones project. Before landing in Afghanistan's bustling capital, Kabul, we outlined a make shift strategy: upon arrival dial as many numbers as possible, which has proved to be successful over the course of our stay

Within the first few minutes of our stay, we were introduced to Cynthia Ryan, Principal of the The Schooner Foundation (http://www.schoonercapital.com/) and on the Board of Directors for international non-governmental organization, Women for Women (www.womenforwomen.org). Lucky for us, she happened to be sleeping in a room down from us at TMF and over breakfast, casually invited us to her meetings at the Women for Women (WfW) chapter in Afghanistan.

During our visits, we spoke with the WfW staff and local participants about the challenges Afghan women face daily. Comfortable among other women, female participants spoke freely about family issues, lack of access to education, Afghanistan's poor economy, and limited job opportunities. We asked survey questions about internet and cellphone use and eventually hit the mark when asking if an all female internet cafe would be a comfortable environment for women to learn how to use use computers and use the internet.

Through meetings with the Ministry of Women's Affairs and USAID, Jeff and I followed up on the gender aspect of this project. With the help of locals, we are putting together a gathering for this Sunday between female lawyers, business women, law students, and parliament members in order to directly address the legal issues and business aspect of the PeaceTones calligraphy and music. Furthermore, Jeff will run an e-commerce training session with the group. Hopefully, the various individuals can connect to form a support network for PeaceTones in Afghanistan, as well as, come up with some answers on how promote the role of professional women within this society.