The Bpeace Team and the Bpeace Associates: April 2007
Farah and Toni get the day going.
Kamela learning she won the Triple-A Award for increasing jobs and training 3,000 Afghans to start businesses.
Nasima learning she won the Triple-A Award for increasing her workforce and doubling her production.
What's in the bag? All the Associates were winners with "second-year graduation" gift bags with perfume and headbands (courtesy of Linda Meyer), candy, pens and make-up.
Asmat and Najib working on the movie script on Suria's team with The Grove materials on the table.Saturday was the first time during this mission we had mostly all of the Associates in the same room at the same time. (Exceptions: Palwasha in the US at Bucknell University; Rangina in Kandahar; and Rahima in a meeting at Parliament). Lots of hugs and kisses.
We started our big reunion with an update from each on their accomplishments during the past year. They had made bets with Toni on who would grow her own business the most, and create the most jobs. We were delighted to hear their progress.
Nargis, who operates Venus Gym, reported a 25% increase in memberships.
Habiba has started construction on her new preschool, and has set-up a new accounting system.
Mahbooba, in addition to her ongoing handicraft business which she operated under the Taliban, has started a farming business. She has provided jobs for 35 women in Kabul and the rural areas. These 35 women work with 750 other women and in the next year they will work with 2,000 families, and with each family having 7 people in it, this translates to 14,000 people benefiting by the program.
Hanifa Adil completed a large order for tablecloths for Dasnet. In her spare time she also knit hundreds of gloves and socks for her home province of Bamiyan because the winter was very tough. While distributing the items, she found additional women who can do knitting and embroidery for her business.
Hanifa Askar Ali’s English and computer school put a competitor out of business. She added 9 more teachers and 60 more students.
Afifa added 6 embroiderers in Ghazni; 2 in Kabul and 2 tailors in Kabul.
Asmat opened a co-op store in Heart with 10 other women.
Suria doubled her knitting workforce to 30 and has another 10 in training.
Bakhtnazira added 6 workers, and completed a $3,000 order for Dasnet for draperies, and booked $2,000 in sales on an India trip. She is under consideration for a major uniform contract.
Latifa is now working at AWBF (Afghan Women’s Business Federation) and is helping create an international market for Afghan carpets.
AND THE WINNERS OF THE BET WITH TONI…now called the Triple-A Award (Associate Achievement Award) for 2007 are:
Kamela who now employs 12 people in her BDS (Business Development Services) consultancy and trained 3,000 people throughout Afghanistan to start businesses in the last year. She has enough business booked for 60% of her expenses over the next 12 months.
AND….
Nasima who had 35 workers last year and this year added 10 more, completing an order for 1,000 silk scarves. She continues to keep her old and new workers busy.
Kamela and Nasima were thrilled. And the Associates reminded them that when they win such an award, they have to do something nice for the rest of the team, like prepare a meal or give gifts of sweets.
After the Triple-A Awards, the Bpeacers held their breath with anticipation as we embarked on a very important moment with the Associates. Coaching them to formulate and launch Business to Peace (B2P) projects that is a most important part of their third year in the Bpeace program. Toni said, “We are not the Business Council of Gender Equality. We are not the Business Council of Handicraft. We are not the Business Council of Microfinance. We are the Business Council of Peace. We have invested in you in the past two years. Now we want to see how you can invest back in your own communities to help create peace.”
In order to help the Associates create their peace projects, Toni used a tool donated from The Grove called “In the Movies.” Kamela, Suria and Bakhtnazira volunteered to be Peace Team Leaders, and the Associates separated themselves into teams. Toni charged them with envisioning a Bollywood movie being made three years from now about their peace projects. What would be the storyline of the movie, who would be the main characters and what would be the happy ending?
Ladan and Ray; Khatera and Marla; and Wendy and Farah each participated in the team brainstormings. Toni asked Najib to participate as well. As a bonus we learned that Najib studied filmmaking in school. Who knew? After lunch, each team described their movie vision and how it would translate to an actionable peace project over the next 12 months.
Bakhtnazira's Team Movie: Peace and Life
Our movie starts with a family that is very happy – 2 children and 2 parents. The beginning of the movie starts with the family coming home and there is nice Afghan music in the background and the daughter is dancing. All of the sudden in the midst of this peace, they hear the noise of a rocket. And the girl stops dancing and goes to her parents. All of the neighbors are screaming and trying to escape.
The next scene shows everyone standing in the home that was struck by the rocket talking to each other. It shows how they were helping everyone who was wounded who had problems, those whose homes were destroyed etc. And then in that group gathering they are talking about how it happened – who was the group that did this.
So an appointed group of men and women decide to find who fired the rocket. And then they contact the part of town where the rocket came from. And this group decides to talk with people from the other side and talk about peace. They go to the mosque and other neighborhoods and talk about peace. In the course of the movie you see the challenges before them – those that are against them, those that don’t agree etc.
With all of the challenges in front of them they convince people to see things are better when there is peace. It shows people gathering back in the old neighborhood and rebuilding their lives, children going back to school and men and women start to work again and the group that is bringing peace to the neighborhood is called Peace Envoys. The reviewers of this movie will say this movie had brave women, big service to peace.
And this is very much what our team will do – we will go to our different areas and each work for peace in our individual regions.
Suria’s Team’s Movie: Saleaha
There was a young girl in a village called Saleaha. She lived with her 2 older brothers and her parents. Everyone was illiterate. Because of the restrictions from her family she could not go outside. In her mind Saleaha always wanted to go out and be with intellectuals, go to school and become an active member of the society. She was always looking for ways to come out of the house. She was upset that her family wouldn’t let her leave the house.
Her aunt who was living in the city came to their home. She told her story to her aunt at night when they were alone. The aunt returns to the city and thinks how she can help her niece. We were thinking that Asmat, Hanifa, and Suria are the friends of the aunt. They advise the aunt on how she can help her niece. They tell the aunt to bring her niece to the city where there are schools. The aunt is afraid to bring her niece because she doesn’t know the school. Her friends tell her to bring her niece and the friends will help.
The next scenes show that the girl has gone to school. The friends who are also business women teach her about business trades as well as just her schooling. The girl then returns to the village so that everyone could see what she has learned. When she goes back to the village and she realizes that there is no school or training, she realizes the best thing she can do is to start a school where she can help the people of her village.
When people in the village see she is such a great seamstress they bring all of their clothes for Saleaha to make. She makes a lot of money so that she can now support her family who at first wouldn’t even let her leave the house. She made clothing for the mullah of the village. As the mullah was speaking in the mosque he praised Saleha’s sewing and praised the people who taught her these skills. She brought money, peace and education to the village.
To turn this movie into a peace project, each of us on our team will work with a real young woman to encourage her family to send her to school and to guide her into business.
Kamela’s Team’s Movie: Believe in Yourself
Violence starts in the house and this permeates into society and is a block to peace. When a boy is born, everyone is happy and it is as the best things that has happened. When a girl is born, people don’t care. They say she will go away in 15 years.
And the first day the girl is born, the mother is depressed and this affects the relationship she has with her husband. And when she has more girls, the relationship gets worse. Ahmet, the first person in the movie, has seen how it was when his mother had girls, how bad things were and he said when he is married, he is not going to treat his wife that way.
He marries and has 2 children a boy and girl. Ahmet remembers from his life that everything in his life that everything was for the boys and nothing for the girls. Ahmet’s wife Razmir is like his sister – she didn’t go to school, but Ahmet helps her with anything she wants to achieve in her life. Then when they have children Hadeen (boy) and Maureen, Ahmet treats the children equally.
They have financial problems and there is a lot of pressure from society for the way Ahmet thinks. He comes home concerned, and has a talk with his wife. He tells her that the community doesn’t agree with how he does things. Ahmet has many friends telling him that it is wrong that he gives his daughter an education etc. Ahmet talks again with his wife and Azmet tells him that they should continue to treat their daughter as they believe.
Maureena has learned from her mother and has given good ideas and has influenced her father that what he’s done was right. He sees what a lovely, bright and accomplished girl she is. She tells her father:
“Believe in me
Don’t listen to people
Let me do what I want to do.”
I want to tell you that I want to do something that will help the finances of the family. And she tells her father that I will show you a day that I will be a symbol of a strong woman for the other women in our society. The other women now see Maureena as a successful women and that she can do what she wants. People are learning gradually that they should do the same thing with their daughters.
People are hearing that many girls are saying they want to be like Maureena. They see how Maureena mother is bright and open; how her brother is supportive and they want brother and mother like Maureena.
In the last scene we see Maureena’s father and brother holding her hands with her mother smiling in the background. Our message for the families is to allow the children to do what they want to do and then encourage them.
We will turn this movie into a peace project by taking a few real-life successful women like Maureena and promote them and advertise for them and show the general Afghan public, that when they let their daughters go to school, they will have more successful families. We will make a plan to figure out how to do this.
Dear blog readers. Our rendition of these movies and their translation into peace projects here, don’t do justice to the excitement and passion our Associates demonstrated in creating them. We have do doubt they will carry through. And you will read into their movie plots, what we have learned from our Afghan friends: Peace begins in the home.
We started our big reunion with an update from each on their accomplishments during the past year. They had made bets with Toni on who would grow her own business the most, and create the most jobs. We were delighted to hear their progress.
Nargis, who operates Venus Gym, reported a 25% increase in memberships.
Habiba has started construction on her new preschool, and has set-up a new accounting system.
Mahbooba, in addition to her ongoing handicraft business which she operated under the Taliban, has started a farming business. She has provided jobs for 35 women in Kabul and the rural areas. These 35 women work with 750 other women and in the next year they will work with 2,000 families, and with each family having 7 people in it, this translates to 14,000 people benefiting by the program.
Hanifa Adil completed a large order for tablecloths for Dasnet. In her spare time she also knit hundreds of gloves and socks for her home province of Bamiyan because the winter was very tough. While distributing the items, she found additional women who can do knitting and embroidery for her business.
Hanifa Askar Ali’s English and computer school put a competitor out of business. She added 9 more teachers and 60 more students.
Afifa added 6 embroiderers in Ghazni; 2 in Kabul and 2 tailors in Kabul.
Asmat opened a co-op store in Heart with 10 other women.
Suria doubled her knitting workforce to 30 and has another 10 in training.
Bakhtnazira added 6 workers, and completed a $3,000 order for Dasnet for draperies, and booked $2,000 in sales on an India trip. She is under consideration for a major uniform contract.
Latifa is now working at AWBF (Afghan Women’s Business Federation) and is helping create an international market for Afghan carpets.
AND THE WINNERS OF THE BET WITH TONI…now called the Triple-A Award (Associate Achievement Award) for 2007 are:
Kamela who now employs 12 people in her BDS (Business Development Services) consultancy and trained 3,000 people throughout Afghanistan to start businesses in the last year. She has enough business booked for 60% of her expenses over the next 12 months.
AND….
Nasima who had 35 workers last year and this year added 10 more, completing an order for 1,000 silk scarves. She continues to keep her old and new workers busy.
Kamela and Nasima were thrilled. And the Associates reminded them that when they win such an award, they have to do something nice for the rest of the team, like prepare a meal or give gifts of sweets.
After the Triple-A Awards, the Bpeacers held their breath with anticipation as we embarked on a very important moment with the Associates. Coaching them to formulate and launch Business to Peace (B2P) projects that is a most important part of their third year in the Bpeace program. Toni said, “We are not the Business Council of Gender Equality. We are not the Business Council of Handicraft. We are not the Business Council of Microfinance. We are the Business Council of Peace. We have invested in you in the past two years. Now we want to see how you can invest back in your own communities to help create peace.”
In order to help the Associates create their peace projects, Toni used a tool donated from The Grove called “In the Movies.” Kamela, Suria and Bakhtnazira volunteered to be Peace Team Leaders, and the Associates separated themselves into teams. Toni charged them with envisioning a Bollywood movie being made three years from now about their peace projects. What would be the storyline of the movie, who would be the main characters and what would be the happy ending?
Ladan and Ray; Khatera and Marla; and Wendy and Farah each participated in the team brainstormings. Toni asked Najib to participate as well. As a bonus we learned that Najib studied filmmaking in school. Who knew? After lunch, each team described their movie vision and how it would translate to an actionable peace project over the next 12 months.
Bakhtnazira's Team Movie: Peace and Life
Our movie starts with a family that is very happy – 2 children and 2 parents. The beginning of the movie starts with the family coming home and there is nice Afghan music in the background and the daughter is dancing. All of the sudden in the midst of this peace, they hear the noise of a rocket. And the girl stops dancing and goes to her parents. All of the neighbors are screaming and trying to escape.
The next scene shows everyone standing in the home that was struck by the rocket talking to each other. It shows how they were helping everyone who was wounded who had problems, those whose homes were destroyed etc. And then in that group gathering they are talking about how it happened – who was the group that did this.
So an appointed group of men and women decide to find who fired the rocket. And then they contact the part of town where the rocket came from. And this group decides to talk with people from the other side and talk about peace. They go to the mosque and other neighborhoods and talk about peace. In the course of the movie you see the challenges before them – those that are against them, those that don’t agree etc.
With all of the challenges in front of them they convince people to see things are better when there is peace. It shows people gathering back in the old neighborhood and rebuilding their lives, children going back to school and men and women start to work again and the group that is bringing peace to the neighborhood is called Peace Envoys. The reviewers of this movie will say this movie had brave women, big service to peace.
And this is very much what our team will do – we will go to our different areas and each work for peace in our individual regions.
Suria’s Team’s Movie: Saleaha
There was a young girl in a village called Saleaha. She lived with her 2 older brothers and her parents. Everyone was illiterate. Because of the restrictions from her family she could not go outside. In her mind Saleaha always wanted to go out and be with intellectuals, go to school and become an active member of the society. She was always looking for ways to come out of the house. She was upset that her family wouldn’t let her leave the house.
Her aunt who was living in the city came to their home. She told her story to her aunt at night when they were alone. The aunt returns to the city and thinks how she can help her niece. We were thinking that Asmat, Hanifa, and Suria are the friends of the aunt. They advise the aunt on how she can help her niece. They tell the aunt to bring her niece to the city where there are schools. The aunt is afraid to bring her niece because she doesn’t know the school. Her friends tell her to bring her niece and the friends will help.
The next scenes show that the girl has gone to school. The friends who are also business women teach her about business trades as well as just her schooling. The girl then returns to the village so that everyone could see what she has learned. When she goes back to the village and she realizes that there is no school or training, she realizes the best thing she can do is to start a school where she can help the people of her village.
When people in the village see she is such a great seamstress they bring all of their clothes for Saleaha to make. She makes a lot of money so that she can now support her family who at first wouldn’t even let her leave the house. She made clothing for the mullah of the village. As the mullah was speaking in the mosque he praised Saleha’s sewing and praised the people who taught her these skills. She brought money, peace and education to the village.
To turn this movie into a peace project, each of us on our team will work with a real young woman to encourage her family to send her to school and to guide her into business.
Kamela’s Team’s Movie: Believe in Yourself
Violence starts in the house and this permeates into society and is a block to peace. When a boy is born, everyone is happy and it is as the best things that has happened. When a girl is born, people don’t care. They say she will go away in 15 years.
And the first day the girl is born, the mother is depressed and this affects the relationship she has with her husband. And when she has more girls, the relationship gets worse. Ahmet, the first person in the movie, has seen how it was when his mother had girls, how bad things were and he said when he is married, he is not going to treat his wife that way.
He marries and has 2 children a boy and girl. Ahmet remembers from his life that everything in his life that everything was for the boys and nothing for the girls. Ahmet’s wife Razmir is like his sister – she didn’t go to school, but Ahmet helps her with anything she wants to achieve in her life. Then when they have children Hadeen (boy) and Maureen, Ahmet treats the children equally.
They have financial problems and there is a lot of pressure from society for the way Ahmet thinks. He comes home concerned, and has a talk with his wife. He tells her that the community doesn’t agree with how he does things. Ahmet has many friends telling him that it is wrong that he gives his daughter an education etc. Ahmet talks again with his wife and Azmet tells him that they should continue to treat their daughter as they believe.
Maureena has learned from her mother and has given good ideas and has influenced her father that what he’s done was right. He sees what a lovely, bright and accomplished girl she is. She tells her father:
“Believe in me
Don’t listen to people
Let me do what I want to do.”
I want to tell you that I want to do something that will help the finances of the family. And she tells her father that I will show you a day that I will be a symbol of a strong woman for the other women in our society. The other women now see Maureena as a successful women and that she can do what she wants. People are learning gradually that they should do the same thing with their daughters.
People are hearing that many girls are saying they want to be like Maureena. They see how Maureena mother is bright and open; how her brother is supportive and they want brother and mother like Maureena.
In the last scene we see Maureena’s father and brother holding her hands with her mother smiling in the background. Our message for the families is to allow the children to do what they want to do and then encourage them.
We will turn this movie into a peace project by taking a few real-life successful women like Maureena and promote them and advertise for them and show the general Afghan public, that when they let their daughters go to school, they will have more successful families. We will make a plan to figure out how to do this.
Dear blog readers. Our rendition of these movies and their translation into peace projects here, don’t do justice to the excitement and passion our Associates demonstrated in creating them. We have do doubt they will carry through. And you will read into their movie plots, what we have learned from our Afghan friends: Peace begins in the home.
Thank you to Farah for the excellent translation of these movie plots, and to Wendy for the essential recap.
14 comments:
Toni and Team...
What a wonderful trip you are having. The movie scripts are nothing less than inspiring. How wonderful to know that "peace" is a concept eveyone believes in.
I am sending you all warm wishes, including a big wish that I were with you.
Keep up the wonderful work.
Pam V.
Loooooved the movie scripts! What a powerful tool that must have been to get the mind working about this topic. I sooooo wish I could have been there to see their faces and hear their voices!
Kudos to everyone. I'm proud of you all.
Hugs to everyone,
Paula
Fascinating blog, it captured so much heart and passion, such a cool concept that must have been quite inspiring to witness. Excellent reporting, Wendy!
The photos are so pretty, bring back some of that spring weather!
Xo,
Pam M.
Hi everyone,
The "screenplays" all deserve a Bollywood Award and an Oscar, too. Can't wait to see the "films" on the "big screen."
Sandi
What a wonderful day and how vivid the movies. Thanks to The Grove for the concept that allowed the ideas to flow.
Send my love and congratulations to all the associates for their great accomplishments. I am so proud of them.
i am speechless (or writeless)--thank you for the vivid stories. XXL
Hi Everyone:
Glad to hear about all of the growth of the Associates.
Continued success.
Whose creating all of these meetings, in one day? you Marla:)
Sabra
What wonderful work you are all doing there! I wish i were with you.
Be safe and please let the associates know i send them my best wishes.
Parinaz
Incredible stuff!!!
Please send my regards on to all our associates and please tell Kamuela and Nasima that I congratulate them on their awards.
Sorry to say (and did not share) that I knew Najib has a film making background. We shared quite a bit of each others history in December when we were sitting in the airport parking lot, drinking tea and waiting for Athena to arrive.
Steve K.
All - Thanks for the inspirational updates! What a fantastic day it must of been. We are drowning back here in NYC, so enjoy the lovely sunshine and please bring some back.
With love,
Susan McP
Ditto Steve's comments on Najib's media/filmmaking background. When he helped me record audio last year he mentioned thathe's produced some short films. He did a great job with the audio, I'm sure his skills were valuable in the movie exercise.
Please send him and his family my warm regards, and big hugs to the team and our ladies.
xoxo
Paula
Exhilerating! It's all a bit overwhelming - I offer my deep respect to all the team members and the associates for your accomplishments. Yes, we can move mountains! Regards, Golde.
I can't help but wonder what our Rwandan associates movie scripts would be like. It certainly brings to life the everyday barriers to peace these women experience. The team should be proud of helping our associates to envision the possibilities and working to help fulfill them.
I hope you get a chance to convey the messages of hope and support our Rwandan associates sent to their sisters in Afghanistan.
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