Combined Joint Task Force - 82 PAO Story by 2nd Lt. Natassia Cherne
NURISTAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan – The Nuristan provincial reconstruction team's female engagement team visited Nengarach village to hold a female shura and help start a community self help project, Jan. 26.
The objective of the shura was to take the women through the process of filling out a project proposal for a community self help project involving sewing machines.
Sixteen women attended the shura, including a village's malik, or tribal leader; an interpreter; and five women from the Nuristan PRT.
The team leaders who organized the shura were U.S. Navy Lt. j.g. Stacey Gross of Lakeville Minn., the information operations officer for the Nuristan PRT, and Leah Kaplan of Denver, Colo., the U.S. Agency for International Development representative for the Nuristan PRT.
Before the PRT can provide funds or materials for self-help projects under $5,000, the community must agree to make a contribution to the project.
The objective of the shura was to take the women through the process of filling out a project proposal for a community self help project involving sewing machines.
Sixteen women attended the shura, including a village's malik, or tribal leader; an interpreter; and five women from the Nuristan PRT.
The team leaders who organized the shura were U.S. Navy Lt. j.g. Stacey Gross of Lakeville Minn., the information operations officer for the Nuristan PRT, and Leah Kaplan of Denver, Colo., the U.S. Agency for International Development representative for the Nuristan PRT.
Before the PRT can provide funds or materials for self-help projects under $5,000, the community must agree to make a contribution to the project.
For this project, the women of Nengarach village agreed to provide a place for the sewing machines.
Once the shura objectives were met, Kaplan asked the local women if they would teach the women of the PRT how to use henna, a dye that is used regularly by the women in Afghanistan for body art.
At first the Afghan women were shy about getting close to the American women, but after one of the locals took the hand of one of the Americans and began drawing a design, the ice was broken and a bond between the women was made.
"The meeting with the women of Nangarach was a huge success," Kaplan said. "Not only were we able to spend time getting to know the women and learning a little bit about their culture, but the women showed strong initiative for their own development by planning their own women's shura to talk about the project proposal they would like to submit to the government for sewing machines."
The female engagement team's ultimate goal for the women is to be self-sufficient. For example, the PRT wants to help the local women create a female committee in charge of teaching other women in the village how to sew. They would be responsible for ensuring they put aside funds to maintain all the sewing machines.
Eventually, the PRT would like to establish an adult female literacy program for the women in hopes of empowering them in the future. Gross and Kaplan were able to identify two literate women in the village who with proper training, could teach other women to read and write.
The female engagement team plans on visiting the women in a few weeks to check the status of the sewing project and will follow up on the potential for a literacy program.
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