Contributor: Shirine Pont

When the Taliban took over the capital city of Afghanistan in 1996, it issued several edicts that stripped women and girls of their rights, forbidding them from working or even receiving an education. Minor violations of the strict rules on behavior and dress were met with severe punishment, such as beatings or worse.

"The Taliban had a very bad effect on women's mindset in Afghanistan," Storai Sadat recalls. "Even after they left, many women doubted their ability to work and make a living after having been confined to their homes for six years."

Yet today, Storai directs a Mercy Corps microlending program that helps thousands of female entrepreneurs realize their dreams of owning beauty parlors, raising livestock, importing clothing, and running other businesses. Since its inception as one of Afghanistan's first microlenders, Ariana Financial Services Group has supported nearly 17,000 clients, the majority of them women.

"The reason for Ariana's focus on female clients is cultural," Storai explains. "In Afghanistan, women take on a large part of the responsibility of caring for the family. It is a question of honor for them to repay any debt they might have. Afghan women simply are far more unlikely to default on a debt than men are."

Women helping women

Storai joined Mercy Corps in late 2001, shortly after U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan, and most of Mercy Corps' efforts were focused on providing emergency relief. At the time she was studying medicine at Kabul University, but with Mercy Corps she helped launch a women's center. Under her guidance, the center trained women to work as beauticians, learn other vocational skills, and even how to drive cars.

In 2003, she began working as a loan officer for Ariana. At the time, microfinance - the provision of small loans to the poor - was unheard of in Afghanistan. Islamic religion forbids the charging of interest, and the only kind of financial services most Afghan people knew was running a tab at their local merchant. But within a year, Ariana had 500 clients.

Within months Storai was named deputy director of the organization, and left school to work with Mercy Corps and Ariana full-time.

Storai faced some challenges in helping women overcome their fears after years of confinement. Many doubted their ability to cope in the outside world or to run a successful business, and those who did participate in a small business had no idea of the value of their work or of their products on the market.

"Many women would work at home and would have no idea of the value of their work on the market as they would never leave the house," says Storai. "Their husbands and sons would sell the products, so they had no information about where the products would be sold and what profit they could make."

Rapid success through ingenuity

The success of Ariana's work is evident in the success of its borrowers. Storai highlights three women who've particularly excelled: one woman who used to make kites at home now exports them to Iran and Pakistan. Another woman made enough money from her homemade jam and pickles to open a grocery store. And a third sold enough eggs to buy her own farm.

Today the challenge for Storai and her team is to expand Ariana into the areas beyond Kabul where fighting still persists. For now, Ariana is opening more branches in Kabul to meet increasing demand there. Storai wants to expand Ariana to cover all of Afghanistan and offer a diverse mix of financial products, including home loans and savings accounts.

Storai's says her favorite moments are the milestones Ariana has hit - its first anniversary and the 500th client in particular. Right now, she doesn't foresee ever leaving Ariana, which means she has many more milestones to look forward to.

Editor's Note: The video, which features New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, originally appeared on The New York Times website.

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Hajji Qetbiddin has lived in Shashtepa all his life. At 55 years of age, he the eldest of Shashtepa's village ‘shura' (council of eldest) who lead the community. Every year, Hajji Qetbiddin and Shashtepa built a mud dam to regulate the stream running by their village and increase water levels in the irrigation channels leading to their fields. Being made of mud, the dam never held more than a few days before the stream returned to its previous course. Every year, Hajji Qetbiddin made regular trips to Taloqan to visit government officials and NGOs to solicit support for his community but he never received the help he was looking for. Shashtepa struggled on and tried to make the best of its situation.

Shashtepa is a small village of 200 families in the northern Takhar province of Afghanistan, about 1.5 hours drive away from the city of Taloqan, the capital of the province. Traditionally all families in Shashtepa are farmers who grow rice, wheat and vegetables and raise livestock. Most of the production is used for subsistence, and some of their harvest is transported to Taloqan for sale. The community has about 2,000 jeribs of land (400 ha or about 1,000 are) of which half is watered over irrigation channels from a nearby stream, while the other half depends on rain for its water.

In the past decade, Afghanistan has been struck by a prolonged drought, and the land of Shashtepa never had sufficient water to support more than one harvest of wheat and vegetables per year. Rains would fail and after spring the water in the stream would sink too low to reach all irrigations channels in the fields. Most villagers had to take on seasonal work in Iran and Pakistan to sustain their families.

Mercy Corps' Afghanistan Rural Recovery Program (AARP) is helping rural communities improve their food and livelihood security. Shashtepa was chosen as one of the 55 communities to take part in this program in northern Afghanistan. Mercy Corps supported Shashtepa to analyze what the most urgent needs of the community were. To make sure that the community would identify projects that were relevant to all community members, a democratically elected village council of men and women was created in Shashtepa in addition to the existing shura. The new village council identified the construction of a dam to regulate the water levels of their stream and an access road to the village as the two most important projects for Shashtepa.

The people of Shashtepa contributed to the projects as they could: they provided all the gravel (230 cubic meters) needed for the dam construction, the villagers undertook the excavation of the foundations themselves and also took care of backfilling (filling up holes created during construction) after the dam was completed. Mercy Corps hired the villagers in a cash-for-work scheme for some of the basic construction work that was needed, thereby also providing the community with a source of income and an injection of cash.

The construction of the dam created a small lake and raised water levels sufficiently for the farmers of Shashtepa to continuously irrigate their land. The increased irrigation now allows them to double their production and grow two crops rather than only one per year; one of rice and one of wheat and vegetables. The completion of the dam in April 2005 coincided with the beginning of the rice planting season. For the first time in a many years water levels were again high enough for the villagers to plant rice. Hajji Qetbiddin is delighted that he doesn't have to buy rice at the market anymore, but can now grow his own.

Access to the community had always been difficult, as there had only been small pathways with roughly constructed bridges to the village. Small pickup trucks could only get through to Shashtepa in the summer when the weather was good and the stream was running low. The community had identified the construction of a 4 km long road with a bridge and several culverts as their second most important project. The village donated 5 jeribs of their agricultural land for the construction of the access road, as the existing path was not wide enough for a road. Good agricultural land is precious in Afghanistan and the willingness of the community to donate this land is an indication of how important they considered this project to be. In addition, they agreed to undertake some of the leveling needed for the road themselves for free. Mercy Corps engaged the villagers of Shashtepa in a cash-for-work scheme where they were paid for building the gravel road under the supervision of Mercy Corps' technical team.

The road has had a significant impact on the community's life and income. Before the road existed, transporting 1 seeb (about 7kg) of the villager's harvest to Taloqan cost them 3 Afghani (about 6 USD cents); now the transportation costs have sunken to 1 Afghani per seeb. In the case of Hajji Qetbiddin who owns 100 jeribs of land (1 jerib produces 80 seebs of rice) he can now save up to 160 USD in transportation costs per harvest. In a country where the average yearly income is 300 USD, this is a fortune.

The new road has also made it much easier and safer for the children of the village to walk or ride their bicycle to school. In the past the timber bridge that crossed the stream was regularly swept away in spring floods making it very difficult for children to cross the stream and get to school.

Hajji Qetbiddin will never let Mercy Corps team members leave Shashtepa without inviting them to at least a cup of local tea or ‘chai' at his home. He believes Mercy Corps has made a substantial difference in his village's situation: "Our life is agriculture. Mercy Corps has saved our life."

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Shala is an Afghan success story. At 31, she has managed to rebuild her life after having lost everything to the war in Afghanistan and lived as a refugee in Iran. She now is the proud owner of two shops in Kabul and spends her days focusing on the most joyful occasion in an Afghan woman's life: marriage. Shala has a beauty parlor specialized on brides and a second shop in which her husband makes wedding flower decorations.

Afghan fashion for brides follows the trends in Turkey and in Saudi-Arabia. Currently orange and pistachio green (for makeup as well as for decorations) are in vogue. Fashionable Afghan brides are pale, and have their hair elaborately curled to cascade down over their shoulders. Eyes and lips are heavily emphasized. Brides will change their clothes several times during the wedding, and if they can afford it one dress will be an elaborate ball gown in light green or white. Shala shows us the glitter that is the height of fashion right now, it is a bright, shimmering green which is applied on the eyes, on the hair and hands to highlight and decorate.

Shala offers her customers a complete service at her beauty parlor: she will cut and dye their hair, do their nails, massage their faces and do their makeup for them. A regular haircut will cost between 100 and 150 Afghani (2 to 3 USD) depending on the length of hair. Making a bride ready for her big day can cost from 2,500 up to 5,000 Afghani (50 to 100 USD).

Shala has worked hard to make her life a success. She started working at 7 years of age, making flower decorations for weddings. At 14 she learned how to be a beautician as an apprentice at a beauty parlor in Kabul. Now she herself teaches apprentices. She takes on 4 students for half a year, after which they officially graduate with a certificate. Apprentices pay her 500 AFA (10 USD) a month to study with her.

Shala got married at 18 and shortly after that she and her family had to flee to Iran as the Taliban took over Kabul. Life in Iran was difficult, for as an Afghan refugee Shala was not allowed to work officially and therefore could not earn much. Her children could not go to school there. Shala and her family stayed in Iran for 8 years. They returned to Afghanistan two and a half years ago because as Shala puts it: "The fighting in our country was finished" and they simply wanted to come back home.

Back in Kabul Shala wanted to start working again right away but neither she nor her husband could find a job. She finally rented a small shop in the area she still is in now, opened a beauty parlor in it and started working on her own. She was paying a rent of about 120 USD per month, an exorbitant sum, and as soon as she could, she moved out.

What enabled her to move out was a loan from Mercy Corps' microfinance organization Ariana. Shala had heard about Ariana from a family member. She had tried to borrow money from her relatives to start her business but they had not been able to help her. The loan of 7.500 AFA (150 USD) from Ariana allowed Shala move to the larger store she is in now, and seriously invest in her business. Currently Shala is on her third loan from Ariana and she has managed to rent the store next door, where her husband now makes and sells plastic flower decorations for weddings and birthdays. Shala has made her beauty parlor a success and customers come from the other side of town to have their hair cut by her. Sometimes she has up to six brides in her store ready to be prepared for their big day.

Shala's recipe for success is: "I am honest. I am strong and I am not afraid to work hard, I always work as hard as possible." She says she continuously tries to invest in and improve her business. Shala is saving all the money she can. She hopes to rent an even bigger shop with better furniture in 6 months time.

Shala says of herself that she is a modern Afghan woman. She does not want to rely on her husband to support her family; she works as if she were solely responsible for their well being. She wants her children to go to school and be able to have a better life. Her dream is to earn enough money to buy land, build a house, and have a garden for her children to play in. With the help of glitter and plastic flowers she is coming closer to fulfilling her dream one step at a time.

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Tibang, Aceh Besar, Indonesia - Mahmulia sits outside her newly-rebuilt home, pounding coconuts to free them from their hulls before selling them to passersby. Her daughter Rosdiana lingers nearby, playing with her three young boys. As we amble into their yard, they greet us with easy, open smiles, instantly welcome us and invite us to join them.

The backdrop of Mahmulia's house is dramatic: beyond the clear blue sky, the tsunami's destruction is still evident in wide expanses of open space where homes and fishponds once existed. Rubble from destroyed buildings still lays everywhere, although much of it has been put to use in creating new roads and paths in the village.

Mahmulia's wooden house stands next to the barren cement foundations of her former home. For now, Mahmulia, her husband, Rosdiana and her husband, their four boys and the boys' great grandmother share the tiny house. According to Mahmulia, the great grandmother is 130 years old - regrettably, she's having her usual mid-day nap at the time of our visit.

Since the tsunami, the men of Tibang have supported their families by working in Mercy Corps' cash-for-work program, which first focused on cleaning the village of debris dumped by the deadly waves. Today, they're concentrating on the revitalization of fishponds in the area. These fishponds were the main source of income for the people of Tibang, and Mahmulia proudly comments that the shrimp, crabs and sweet water fish harvested here were renowned throughout the region for their quality.

Mahmulia would know; her husband worked as a fish vendor in the main market of Banda Aceh prior to the tsunami. On a good day, he'd be able to sell all of his fish and bring home the equivalent of USD $7.

Mahmulia's husband has not returned to his fish vending business yet. He lost all of his equipment to the tsunami, and lacks the cash to buy new supplies right now. He's saved quite a bit of money he's earned in the cash-for-work program, but the equipment he needs is expensive: about USD $220 for baskets, a vendor's table and other items. Much of the money he's made has gone to building a house for the family and meeting health care needs.

Restoring Tibang's Pride

Mercy Corps is helping men like Mahmulia's husband, businessmen who have maintained traditional trades to provide for their families, to rebuild their commerce.

Mercy Corps' Livelihoods program is investing USD $450,000 to rebuild the critical aquaculture that Tibang's families have depended on for decades. The tsunami destroyed all of the 230 fishponds and their supporting infrastructure, including a nearly four kilometer-long canal of 3.7 km that leads to the sea and controls water levels in the ponds.

"The canal is an essential part of the fish pond system, and thereby of the village's economy," said Tim Stewart, Mercy Corps' Livelihoods Coordinator in Aceh Province. "We recognized the enormity of the project, and forged a partnership with the people of Tibang. It will take about 10 months to reconstruct the canal and the embankments of the fishponds."

Mercy Corps negotiated with the local government to provide heavy equipment like a back hoe for free. Other partners, including a large European bank, have also contributed by covering the costs for the reconstruction of the canal and 70 fishponds.

Mercy Corps is also committed to restoring the widely-known quality of Tibang's seafood industry. "Tibang had excellent water quality, took advantage of natural breeding patterns and did not overstock," Stewart said. "This explains the quality of their produce. Mangroves were used as natural breeding grounds for shrimp and fish, besides providing protection from the sea."

The agency has purchased mangrove seedlings to replant those lost in the tsunami. Beyond the completion of the fisheries' infrastructure, Mercy Corps plans to help Tibang extend its aquaculture by constructing hatcheries for fish and shrimp. That way, they can raise their own hatchlings instead of having to buy them elsewhere.

Most of the reconstruction in Tibang is being carried out by the villagers themselves, including Mahmulia's and Rosdiana's husbands, as part of the cash-for-work program. This continued source of income will help Mahmulia's family save the money they need to buy equipment and get back in business.

Mahmulia has a lot of hope for the future. As I sat on her small porch, I asked her what she thinks it will hold for her.

"When things get better, we will be able to fulfill our dream of having a small warung, a small grocery store, here in Tibang," she says. "I see a bright future for my family, and for Tibang."

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Lampisang, Aceh Besar is a lovely village of traditional Indonesian wooden houses built on stilts. When the Indian Ocean tsunami hit in late December 2004, the waves reached the village with sufficient force to bear most of the villagers’ possessions away. Everyone managed to flee into the surrounding hills before the deadly surge came, and so Lampisang was lucky not to lose any lives.

Times have never been easy in this community of farmers, but, with many men still out of work in the aftermath of the tsunami, it is often the women who generate the income needed to keep their families going. They often do so by making cakes, cassava crackers and other baked goods.

The women in Lampisang work together and help each other. Cakes and cassava crackers are made from home, and the women get together in groups to work.

“It is much better when we work together,” said Ibu Ana, one of the community’s bakers. “We can talk, and laugh.”

Ibu Ana is just one of the dedicated women taking part in Mercy Corps’ Livelihoods program in Aceh. Backing women’s livelihoods is especially important, because it bolsters family income and earnings are often used to pay for children’s education. The money the women earn also provides them with a measure of control and independence in their lives.

Mercy Corps’ support goes beyond simply providing the funds that local women need to restart their businesses. The organization also looks at the whole market chain the business is part of and provides assistance that reaches from negotiating with supply vendors to supporting distribution.

Women from villages like Lampisang form a group and submit a proposal to Mercy Corps for a grant that enables them to buy the equipment and material they need to restart their home businesses. As part of the Livelihoods program, all members of the group commit themselves to investing membership fees into a revolving fund that will be used as a savings group. In Lampisang, 11 cake makers, 11 cassava cracker makers and 41 members of a sewing circle form the group.

Women Bring Home the Bakin'

Wati, age 23, is another of the cake makers in the village. Together with her mother Kartini and grandmother, she specializes in Bolu Boi cakes. The cakes are made from a simple mixture of flour, water, sugar, eggs and vanilla, baked in small traditional forms over a smoky coconut husk fire. They are a favorite all over Aceh, and at weddings it is a local tradition for the bride’s family to present a Bolu Boi cake in the form of a fish to the groom’s family.

Wati’s dark kitchen is a hive of activity, and her mother Kartini doesn’t even want to stand still for a family photo - the cakes might burn. On a good day they can sell up to a 100 bags, with a bag containing 10 cookie-sized cakes for 3,500 IDR (40 cents). The peak season for cake sales is during the month of Ramadan, when they can sell up to 500 bags per day from the little shop in front of their house. The income made by selling Bolu Boi cakes supports Wati, her parents, grandparents and siblings - a family of 8 in all.

Ibu Ana makes cassava cakes by shredding raw cassava into pulp. The pulp is then rolled out into thin circles on a sheet of plastic and boiled. The next step in the preparation is to dry the crackers for a day or two in the sun on traditional palm leaf mats. The sun-dried crackers are then sold to road side cafes and on the market, and still need to be fried before they can be eaten.

Ibu Ana makes up to 400 cassava crackers per day, which totals 40,000 IDR or about $4. With this income she is supporting her husband – who lost his job as a driver since his previous company hasn’t reopened business yet – and her two school-aged children. Her husband is now helping her with the cracker business, and they use the income to pay for food and the children’s tuition fees. Ibu Ana even has managed to save a little money – a fact that makes her very proud.

In Lampisang, cakes and crackers are making a difference in family’s lives - one that goes far beyond a tasty snack.

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