Afghanistan
Students Earn Money Through Carpet Weaving
By Vanessa N. Glavinskas
Rotarians in Pakistan and the United States are using the
centuries-old craft of carpet weaving to help inhabitants of a town
in Afghanistan make better lives for themselves.
Spin Boldak,
in southern
Afghanistan
near the Pakistani border, has certainly felt the effects of the
war. Thousands face a daily struggle to survive or find work.
P
Pakistan Rotarians Aziz Memon and Nasir Khan present RI Past
President Wilf Wilkinson with a carpet woven in Afghanistan.
Photo courtesy of Rotary Club of Peshawar.
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ast RI Director Lynmar Brock helped connect the Rotary Club of
Abaysin Central in Peshawar,
Pakistan
with the Rotary Club of Central Chester County, Pennsylvania, USA,
to establish a project, to teach residents the art – and marketable
skill – of carpet weaving, after Brock returned from a visit to Pakistan. The Pakistan club
wrote up a matching grant application and sent it to Brock, who
helped them find an international partner.
For centuries,
experienced weavers in Afghanistan have painstakingly
created a heritage of rugs, with many families passing on their
designs for generations. A new 3 x 5-foot rug made by an amateur can
sell for US$50 at a local bazaar – and overseas, the decorative
carpets sell for far more.
“Skills in carpet weaving in
war-torn areas of Afghanistan
are an immediate source of earning, either in a carpet weaving
factory, or one can start his or her own facility,” explains Vasanth
Prabhu of the Central Chester County
club.
The two Rotary clubs raised $15,000 with the help of
the matching grant, which was used to buy 10 looms, tools, and wool
for the training center.
Despite continued unrest in the
region, materials still flow to Spin Boldak, allowing more and more
of its residents to learn to weave. As of March, 90 men and women,
mostly in their 20s and 30s, had graduated from the two-month
training program.
Prabhu says the clubs are now hoping to
cooperate with another nonprofit to sell the rugs internationally
This will allow those in the program to concentrate more on the
actual weaving and less on the marketing and selling of the carpets,
says Prabhu.
“It is a chance to be employed with a decent
salary.”
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