Microfinance for women
On the outskirts of Herat, a ramshackle new settlement has sprouted to house the large numbers of refugees returning home after years of exile in Iran. Finding livelihoods for these large numbers has been a major challenge. Now, access to microfinance is helping many of these refugees, particularly women, to set up small businesses of their own. Over 800 very poor women have set up small shops, or tailoring and carpet weaving businesses. For many widows, this is the only source of income with which they support their children and older relatives.
Bibi Hawa learnt tailoring when she was just nine years old. The skill helped her to make ends meet during the 12 years the family spent in Iran. Her husband’s meager income as a laborer was never enough to sustain their large family. Life was not much better when they returned home to Gabriel village 11 years ago. The harsh Taliban government jailed her husband in Qandahar for some time, making survival extremely difficult for her and her young children.
Bibi Hawa recalls the hardship of those years: “We could barely survive and lived hand to mouth under the Taliban Government. My children worked all day long weaving carpets and couldn’t go to school. It took them 2-3 months to complete one carpet.”
When the young mother heard that the NGO BRAC was assisting people in her village to set up small businesses, she thought she could put her tailoring skills to good use. Her first loan of Afs. 8,000 helped her to buy a sewing machine, tables, iron etc. to set up her small tailoring business. With the security of the additional income, she was able to put her children in school.
Slowly repaying and borrowing again – her second and third loans were for Afs.12,000 and Afs. 20,000 each – the family now has two shops in the village market that sell clothes for men, women, and children - all tailored by her. One of the shops is run by her husband while the other is looked after by her eldest son.
“My sons are no longer weaving carpets; instead they go to school and are educated now,” Bibi Hawa says with pride.
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