Afghan Women's Network (Afghanistan)

Dated on 7th March, 2008 pre-celebration of the 8th March (International Women Day) was arranged

by the help of Afghan Women Network’s Provincial office & Young Associations in Peshawar in which

the following respected guests participated:
• Mir Mohammad Yousuf “Farahat”
First Secretary of Afghan General Consulate in Peshawar followed by
• Project Director/Dean of Ariana University

Case study of FATIMA

Fatima from Now Abad Reflect Circle project says, “It is before joining Reflect Circle, when I used to get my children to hospital it was very difficult for me to find the relevent department because of illiteracy, I didn’t even know about where are ENT OPD, Surgery OPD, pharmacy, Operation Theater and Medical OPD in a hospital.

In this connection Reflect Circle has been very useful and fruitful to me through which I have learnt a lot of things, Now it is very easy for me to read the hanging boards of each section and I can find the specific section or department without any help from others and thuse a big proble of mine is solved.”

Thanks, Reflect Circle,
Fatima from Now Abad

Educational training Center for poor Women and girls of Afghanistan (ECW)

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AWAC Project

Ali Abad, Kunduz province

Impact Stories from ECW REFLECT circles

Interviewee Name: Qamar Gul, member of Hajee Hafizullah Circle
Interviewer: Shamim Rahmani
Date: 27/01/08


Qamar Gul is 21 years old. She is married and has one child. She has been one of the members of Hajee Hafizullah REFLECT circle for two years. During the past two years, significant changes have occurred to her personal and social life that can be counted as an achievement of the project effects and the hard work of the project trainers.
Qamar Gul said: ‘Before I came to this circle, I was completely illiterate. I didn’t know the value of education. After I joined this circle, I leaned reading, writing and numeracy. Furthermore, I didn’t know any vocational skills, such as sewing clothes, cutting cloths and so on. Then I learned these skills from other women in our circle. Currently, I am working as a tailor trainer in NSP program and office in my village. I have 16 students to teach them how to cut and sew clothes. Besides tailoring, I teach them embroidery. By this work, I can support my family economically and I am happy. I am not only the tailor trainer of NSP , but also the trainer in my REFLECT circle; twice a week I teach the member of the circle how to cut and sew cloths.’
She was asked about the effects of her joining to the REFLECT circle to her life in the past two years.
She answered that: ‘The REFLECT circle has been very effective for my life. Besides learning tailoring skill which is supporting me financially, I have learned how to take care of my child, how to accomplish my responsibilities as a citizen, what responsibility I do have in my life as a woman and as a mother, how to communicate with people to solve my problems, how to protect myself and my family members from different kinds of diseases that are specifically related to children and women, how to prepare hygiene and healthy food for my family and. The most important thing I learned is that I learned about my rights and the rights of others to respect and practice it and live happily.’
‘Now I have learned the skills that how to deal with my problems, how to be helpful to my family and keep them peaceful, and how to help my family members especially my husband in supporting my family and then my society.’

Introduction to Reflect project

This project was started in January, 1st and since been going forward. At first step, we conducted a survey of the area and recruited staff for implementation of the project. Next we provided training materials to trainers. Here it is worth mentioning that these trainers visited AWN Kabul Office for 11 days and received necessary training at AWN Office, Kabul through Action Aid. After completion of this training they were given certificates of completion of training and were allowed to conduct further trainings at Ghazni. After going back to Ghazni, these trainers started conducting training and initially conducted a 10 days training (9:00 am to 03:00 pm daily) for 15 community facilitators at regional office of AWSE, Ghazni.

Miahan Wali; the leader of the youth committee from Afghan women network (AWN) is presenting the Afghan people in the Greenwich London conference in 2008.

In this process a number of students was introduced by Afghan women network, and had our first meeting in October 2007 with Mr. Zia Zahir, Fauzia, and Dawood of British council. As a result three finalists were selected. And fortunately amongst those three Maihan was short listed for the conference. It is to be mentioned that those three finalist were all the members of the AWN youth committee. After the final and last selection I had meeting with the director of the British council, he also had some questions to ask about me, my language proficiency and other activities of mine, that fortunately got passed successfully.

AWN published 10th Issue (5th Year) of its Most comprehensive and widely circulated Magazine "Irtiqa" that contains strories about women, their achievements, litereture and poetry, activities and womens related news from different spheres of life.



Please click here to view this magazine or download PDF version