Afghanaid has come to help the women in our village, so that all of our lives can improve.

Rahima, 24, lives with her husband and their two young daughters - Soliha, 5, and Someia, 3 - in a remote rural village in Ghor.

Life for families living in Rahima's village is tough, and patriarchal norms mean that women aren’t given the opportunity to get an education, or learn the skills they need to earn a living. This means they are unable to support their families or reach their full potential.

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Rahima's story

“Life in the past was difficult for our community. We have always been poor people here.” Rahima recalls. “Our husbands work in agriculture all day and we women had to leave the village and go to the mountains find timber to burn to keep warm and to cook with.

This meant that we were away from our children for many hours every day without anyone to look after them. We worried about them constantly but we did not have a choice - we did not know how else we could provide for them than by doing this.”

Afghanaid is working with women like Rahima, giving them the skills they need to assert control over their own lives, improve the well-being of their families, and drive the development of their communities forward. “Afghanaid has come to help the women in our village, so that all of our lives can improve.” 

Learning to read and write the first step on the road to independence

“Afghanaid is running literacy and numeracy courses for illiterate women, as many of the women in this village did not get an education.

"Afghanaid has also taught us how to establish savings groups and we have learned how we can use these groups to work together in order to set up our own home-based businesses in the future and get these businesses off the ground. Before that, though, we will each learn a vocational skill which we will then be able to use to set up these businesses.”

"Before I was worried and did not how to make things better. Now I feel very happy. With Afghanaid’s help, we will learn new skills, work and earn an income, so that we can support our families and ensure that our children get an education. As well as this, we will be able to help our husbands to provide our families with their daily needs. In this way, we will be much more equal with our husbands - we will work together with them, rather than relying on them.”

With earning an income, comes respect

Afghanaid knows that when women in Afghanistan are economically empowered, their social status in the home and community also improves as a result, and their influence over family matters increases.

“Working and contributing to the household income will make our husbands respect us more. Afghanaid is also running courses to teach us about our rights and so men and women will be much more equal in the village. This will be good for the whole village because everyone will be working together to improve the lives of the people here."

Empowering women improves the lives of entire communities

"We women are very happy about this but the men are happy about it too, because this means we will be able to contribute to the household income and we will be able to be much more independent.”

Rahima now has high hopes for her family’s future. “Our children will be safer and happier because, thanks to Afghanaid, we will be able to work from home, rather than leaving our children to go to the mountains all day."

Building a brighter future for generations to come

"Now I feel confident that I will be able to make sure that Soliha and Someia’s lives will be much better than they would have been. I will be able to pass on my knowledge to them, as well as paying for their schools supplies, helping them with their homework, and making sure they can work to build better futures for themselves and their future families!”

How you can support women like Rahima