Vital Job-Skills Training for 500 Afghan Women

Meet Azada, a graduate of WfWI. During her year-long holistic training program with WfWI, Azada learned how to cut gem stones to make jewlery, allowing her to find a job after graduation so she could support her family. Learning a vocational school and being able to support herself and her family has provided her with a massive sense of accomplishment. Go Azada!

Azada was 14 when her father asked her to marry a cousin of hers; hoping, as is common in some forms of Islam, that a relative would treat her better than a stranger. It wasn’t the case.

Azada had two daughters with her husband, and wondered how she’d ever be able to escape his abuse. Finally her father agreed she should divorce, and she lived with him in Pakistan, performing difficult and low-paying labor to survive, until the Taliban fell in 2001.

Upon her return to Kabul with her family, Azada enrolled in Women for Women International’s sponsorship program and learned to cut semi-precious stones for jewelry. Now she teaches other women the skills she acquired with Women for Women International. Her most prized possession is her certificate of employment. “I never thought that I would have the opportunity to support myself without a man,” Azada says. “Now... I am doing it!”