Pasta project employs hundreds of women

Afghanistan is not a country normally associated with producing pasta, but there is now a project to produce it, which currently feeds hundreds who have no income in this war-torn nation. Moreover, for hundreds of internally displaced and widowed Afghan women, it is the only way to earn a living.

“Many Afghan women and their families rely on this project,” the senior community development adviser for the United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (Habitat) for Afghanistan, Rahela Hashim, told IRIN. Some 3,620 women are working in the five Habitat-run pasta-processing centres now operating in the capital, Kabul, and in Herat, Farah, Kandahar and Balkh provinces.

The first project was set up in 1999 in Mazar-e Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh Province, now home to 30 pasta-processing centres employing some 1,500 women. Habitat makes a point of taking on women who have been internally displaced by the severe drought and ongoing war, and are in search of food and water.

“We chose pasta because the women wanted a food-making project, rather than textiles,” Hashim explained.
Under the strict rule of the Taliban, women are not allowed to leave their homes for work. However, this project has been approved and is run under the supervision of a woman in each centre, who must report back to the authorities on each day’s activities.

“It’s a place for women to meet and chat too,” Vida Jayhony, who works at the centre, told IRIN. “I don’t want to stay at home all day,” she added.

Once inside their centre, the women, who are required to wear the burka (traditional Islamic gown covering a body from head to toe), put on their aprons and don their baking hats. “It’s good fun. I like this outfit,” Nabila, one of them told IRIN. They say they enjoy being able to go out to work, and feel it is an essential project. “We feel very happy, because we are able to provide for our families,” Nabila added.

There are 51 women in each centre, producing 100 packets of fresh spaghetti daily, and paid in sacks of wheat donated by WFP. Trained by Habitat staff, they are now accustomed to operating special pasta-processing machines to help shape the dough for various types of pasta.

While pasta is traditionally associated with Italy, it is used in everyday cooking in Afghanistan, according to Hashim. Once packed, the flour-based food is distributed to needy families in the local community.
She explained that locals make a curry sauce to eat with the spaghetti or put it into a nutritious soup with vegetables.

Asked whether they had learned any Italian recipes, Jayhony said: “I don’t know the Italian way of cooking pasta. But I’ve heard Italian women are very pretty, and I watched many Italian movies before the Taliban banned television sets.”