Women for Women International (WFWI) is an organization, which a young Iraqi American woman, Zainab Salbi, started in 1992 to help women in conflict zones, recover their lives. It played an active role in serving the women victims of war in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina.
Presently, it’s pulsating in nine countries by working as a panacea for women and their families especially in the war prone regions.
From the time of 2002, the WFWI has trained round about 9,000 women in job skills in Afghanistan.
According to Salbi, the women require some financial stability, which’ll make them independent, ‘decision maker of their families and community and voting’ and mend their fractured families.
For instance, Pashtoon, who lost her husband in 1992, had nothing to rely on with but then WFWI stepped forward and trained her as a beautician. Now she is looking after her family independently, bearing her orphaned grandson not only this, she’s also counted among the entrepreneurs of Afghanistan.
The WFWI program director, Pat Morris, who lately tripped to Afghanistan, said that Afghan women see optimistic changes.
The inclusion of men into the program is one of the major approaches of the WFWI as Morris admits that positive changes come when women and men would perform certain duties in ‘partnership’.
The WFWI imparts training to its women folk in the field of beautician, jewelry making and tailoring. They also happen to open bakeries and make shoes and purses at home.
Salbi revealed that working in Taliban is a bit tough job as some provinces has negative impact on women like drug trafficking.
The U.S. government is worried as regards to the increase in drug trafficking, and addresses it through a USAID program that assists Afghan women through micro financing.
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