We believe the right to tell one’s story is a human right. The volunteer-based AWWP empowers oft-silenced Afghan women to share their voices with the world.
Your support helps Afghan women tell their stories through our online and on-the-ground workshops. Above, a writer in Kabul begins to write on the theme “Who Am I?”
Issue 25
August 2011
Greetings!
This month we bring you a first-voice report from our founder, Masha Hamilton, who traveled to Afghanistan to visit our “on the ground” program. Thanks to your donations, she was able to provide additional laptops to writers,and she led writing workshops for a week.
“I led writing workshops in Kabul and in Herat. We broke the ice with a group poem and then wrote together for over two hours, breaking briefly for stretching sessions that made the women giggle.
“I also met individually with writers who shared fears about the growing Talibanization of Afghanistan. At Herat, in the home of one of our writers, I ate dinner in the darkness because that afternoon, the Taliban had bombed the area’s electrical grid. in Kabul, I spoke with our writer Miriam, a mother of six, who recalled that when the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996, she owned only one burqa. She loaned it to her mother-in-law, going out instead in a chador which covered everything except her face. For this, Talibs beat her. She worries about the possibility of
Our Kabul liaison (L) hands a new laptop to one of our writers (R)
the Taliban taking power again in the capital. ”I think it could happen. If they came back, what will we do? There is nowhere for us to run. I will die.”
“This comment and others brought home the importance of AWWP’s efforts to empower these women as they face off against fundamentalists. Support from our dedicated volunteer staff and funding from AWWP readers is critical to pay for meeting places, internet service, and laptops – in short, to protect these vulnerable voices.”
And as always, please remember to comment on our website to encourage our brave writers, many who write in secret and some who walk miles to send us their work.
from “The Naamah’ram Downstairs”
AFP photo
. . . As soon as she said this Ahmad opened his mouth and closed his eyes and started saying insults that my mom in her 35 years of life had not heard from a man. She got really mad and threw her sandal at him, but it missed him, and then he ran upstairs and started beating her.
First, she went to complain at the nearby police station. Then she went to the hospital for stitches in her nose. . . .
. . . It didn’t have a sign, but all people knew it was Hamam Zanana. On the main entrance door there was a big, heavy, dirty quilt hanging as a curtain. It was white, but it got darker with the dirt until it looked black.
When we entered there was a dark, bad smelling hall with wood shelves and in a corner the hamani. She was the owner and cashier girl, always very angry and nervous and ready to fight. She had a small shelf full of cheap shampoos and soaps she labeled with her dirty writing “Made In Paris” to resell at a high price. The writing looked as if it was written with fingers of her feet.
She was always nervous with a blank look. Mom paid the fee and we had to take off our clothes in front of her in the dark room. These were the hardest moments. I felt nervous and hot. I was ready to pass the whole winter without a bath, but there was no option. I had to do it.
The security situation can be difficult for many women in Afghanistan, especially those who are determined to further their education or those who frankly tell their stories. Out of concern for their safety, AWWP will not use family names or specific locators.
If you would like information on the project, or how to donate money, time, computer resources, or any kind of technical/business expertise that might help promote and strengthen The Afghan Women’s Writing Project’s aims and goals, then please contact us at:
