Skills for Employment for Afghan Women Project

We would like to congratulate all of World University Service of Canada's student-led Local Committees, and individual donors who contributed to WUSC and CARE Canada's Vocational Training for Afghan Women Project during the Afghanistan Challenge pilot phase. As a result of their efforts, the target goal of $37,500 has been met.

If you would like to donate to either of these organizations, outside of the fund-matching Afghanistan Challenge program, please use the links provided below.

The purpose of the Vocational Training for Afghan Women Project (VTAWP) is to increase the self-sufficiency of vulnerable women and their families in Kabul through skills development and related employment and income generation support. The goal of the project is to assist the Government of Afghanistan to implement its social protection strategy particularly as it pertains to support for vulnerable women.

Through the Afghanistan Challenge, WUSC and CARE Canada can enhance the socio-economic conditions with:

• increased employment and self-employment for women (including widows and female headed households) in Kabul.
• greater community acceptance of women in the workplace.
• local vocational training institutes, private enterprises and NGOs delivering effective market-driven training to vulnerable groups.
• improved Canadian understanding and engagement in Afghanistan's development efforts.

Your support will mean Afghan women can acquire skills that meet labour-market demand, including increased literacy and numeracy skills. They will have increased access to job placements and job search assistance and be linked to complementary initiatives (e.g. micro-financing and business/enterprise training).

Programming Information

Under the Taliban, widows in Afghanistan were forbidden from going to school or working outside of their home. As a result, as many as 97% have no education or marketable skills and are either unemployed or lack sustainable jobs.

History has shown that women working in such poorly paid, labour-intensive jobs will raise children who are destined for the same fate. Uneducated children who grow up contributing to their family's income by begging in the streets become part of a poverty cycle that is difficult to break.

The Vocational Training for Afghan Women Project will address these problems by helping widows and their families acquire the skills they need to enter trades that offer better incomes and by providing financial tools, such as micro-finance and savings and loans groups.

The project's goal is to help households headed by women enjoy a higher standard of living and improve community acceptance of women in the workplace. Ultimately, if more women acquire better literacy skills and sustainable jobs, the whole country will benefit economically.

WUSC and CARE Canada, two Canadian organizations who have proven themselves by delivering meaningful developmental results around the world, are partnering with CIDA to empower the widows of Afghanistan. CARE, which has worked in Afghanistan for approximately 40 years, started working with the widows of Afghanistan in 1996. WUSC has been helping Afghans since the early 1980s.

WUSC

WUSC is a network of individuals and post-secondary institutions who believe that all peoples are entitled to the knowledge and skills necessary to contribute to a more equitable world. Our mission is to foster human development and global understanding through education and training.

WUSC Overseas

In addition to Afghanistan, we have development projects in the Balkans, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Haiti, Malawi, Peru, Sri Lanka and Vietnam and we deliver meaningful results in:

• Education and health - including basic and higher education, water and sanitation, and HIV and AIDS.
• Sustainable livelihoods - including vocational training and agriculture/rural development.
• Governance - including strengthening civil society, promoting human rights and peace building

CARE Canada

CARE is a global force dedicated to defending dignity and fighting poverty by empowering the world's most vulnerable and greatest resource for change: women and children.

We facilitate lasting change by:

• Strengthening capacity for self-help;
• Influencing policy decisions at all levels;
• Providing economic opportunity;
• Addressing discrimination in all its forms;
• Delivering relief in emergencies.

Guided by the aspirations of local communities, we pursue our mission with both excellence and compassion because the people whom we serve deserve nothing less.

CARE Overseas

For more than 60 years, CARE Canada has worked on the front lines to empower communities in need and to improve living conditions throughout the developing world. In approximately 70 countries around the world, CARE responds to challenges like HIV and AIDS, poverty, gender inequality, environmental degradation, natural disasters and conflict.

We place special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty.

She has the power to change her world. You have the power to help her do it.