Afghan Hands

To best understand Afghan Hands, here’s an excerpt from an interview with founder Matin Maulawizada by Tahmina Tea.

“When the civil war was at its worst, I remember reading about women being raped and committing suicide and that's when I decided to become an American citizen. And I would actively refuse to look at news in Afghanistan because it destroyed me. I lost my faith, I lost my country, I lost everything. In 2004, I wanted to go back to Afghanistan when the Taliban were kicked out and it was very hopeful because everyone was going back. But they were going on tour buses, and I was so offended by that. I can't just go in and say, “I’ve been gone for 20 years but I’m just back sightseeing and eating food and then I’m gonna go back in two weeks.” I wanted to go to Afghanistan, but I just couldn't go empty-handed. So I took what I saved, a little bit of money, and thought “I'm just taking this with me and will see what I can do.” But the one thing I knew about at that time was the plight of women. They didn't have any way of fending for themselves. A lot of women were going from door to door, hand washing people’s clothes and making pennies.

So originally the idea behind Afghan Hands was to educate women in at least literacy, numeracy, and human rights. We could give them a stipend to go to school, and every time they got their results back, we'd give them money because I didn't want to hand out money to anyone. I've been a refugee and I know what it does to your psychology; it destroys you. So I didn't want anyone to go through what my family went through at one point. I went with $40,000 and I was with my cousin, who helped me find Noor Jaan, who became my project manager, and she was a godsend until she passed away three years ago. She was such an amazing, passionate woman. We were going to teach the women embroidery to a point of mastery and then we'd take projects from American and European designers. But we soon found out that the Western designers were extremely demanding to a point of damaging their psyche because these women are not professional workers. I decided that we're never gonna take another order from the West. But Noor Jaan really protected these women. So it became an art project for them; they would do whatever they wanted to do. 

We started with 20 women in two neighborhoods and then by the time I left Kabul we had 40 women and very quickly we grew up to 200 women. We had another idea that they would decide what to do with their skills. If they wanted to open a bakery, nail salon, or a photography business, I wanted to make these little co-ops and provide the seed money until they were standing on their feet and by the time they would pay their loan back, we would give that money back to them for them to expand. Sad to say, the security deteriorated and women were begging us not to send them to school and still provide them education in the little rooms we had because people were throwing acid in female students’ faces. So we couldn't implement those programs because of security and we just kept going with embroidery. We launched a capsule collection a couple months ago with my good friend Zohlay from Zarif Design. And I am talking to different people right now in order to see how I can do Afghan Hands not as a not as a production entity, but as an education program in a way to inspire and educate adults and children. We've faced many challenges, and now I am trying to go back and do something that is a little bit more pragmatic.”