Rural women benefit from WFP's food-for-training

Sorting fruit bearing saplings in a garden, Noor Begum, a 37 year-old-widow, supports her nine-member family in Charmassa village, in the conservative eastern Nangarhar province. Despite the many challenges women face in male-dominated Afghan society, Begum is eager to learn a profession through which the mother-of-six, who is the head of her household, could earn a sustainable living. Now she's acquiring horticultural skills through the United Nations World Food Programme Food's (WFP) food-for-training initiative. "It is not regarded as bad to be a woman gardener in our village. Moreover, there is a good income if you do it more professionally," said Begum, who had returned from neighbouring Pakistan after two decades of life in exile. Begum is one of more than a thousand vulnerable women in Nangarhar who receive training in horticultural, handicraft and other traditional skills through WFP's food-for-training programme. WFP's initiative aims to empower rural communities with a focus on widows and illiterate women who have to work to support their families. "These activities are aimed at increasing income generation projects in rural areas in order to empower women to acquire skills and be self-reliant in the long run," Nasrin Rafiq, a programme assistant for the UN food agency, told IRIN in Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Nangarhar. Trainees and trainers were given a monthly food ration which included wheat, oil, pulses and other food items, she explained. But there remain many obstacles to women's development in this ultra-conservative society where men do not let girls go to school in certain areas. Vocational training is one way to encourage communities to let these women participate in social activities outside their homes. "My family did not let me go to school but they encouraged me to come to this centre and learn embroidery," Khumari, a 20-year-old rural woman who, like many Afghans has one name, told IRIN at a WFP women's tailoring and embroidery training centre in Jalalabad. Khumari also attends literacy course at the centre, which is mandatory for every trainee. "I thought I was too old to learn to read and write but now it is becoming more interesting than embroidery training," the young woman said. Having a traditional skill was more important than education for her fellow women villagers, Khumari explained. "A girl with good embroidery or tailoring skills finds a husband sooner than those without skills," she said, smiling with her shy eyes fixed to the ground. WFP believes that food can be a key tool for greater female participation in social activities in rural and urban areas. "We also have a school feeding programme which has been successful in encouraging parents to send their daughters to schools and has had a significant impact on girls' enrollment," Rafiq said, adding the UN food agency was also providing food to teachers aiming to increase the number of female teachers at schools. "While Afghanistan as a whole is encountered with poverty, food is an essential instrument for reaching any short and long term development goals in this post-conflict country," the programme assistant said.