MEDA’s Garden Gate project empowers Afghan women

To say Afghanistan is a country under construction would be a gloss on a complex culture that’s been at war for three decades. Certainly you can see signs of hope in Kabul’s new buildings, but I saw towns and villages more developed in West Africa 20 years ago. It did no prepare me for what I saw.

Afghanistan is in desperate need of the aid Canada provides. Part of it is channeled through Mennonite Economic Development Associates’ (MEDA) Through the Garden Gate project. Launched in early 2007 in three villages in Parwan province north of Kabul, Garden Gate is a horticultural project aimed at helping women boost yields in kitchen gardens for consumption and marketing.

Women are trained in horticulture through pictographs by the Afghan Women’s Business Council.

Often within the mud walls of each family’s compound, the gardens are part of the women’s realm. In a culture where women have limited mobility, the gardens provide a chance to remove burkas, feed their family, and earn an income – improving their lives, sparking their local economy, and giving them hope for the future.

Permission for the project comes from the men’s community development council, based on the tribal council, or shura. In a country where only 26 percent of men and five percent of women can read or write, MEDA’s project partner, the Afghan Women’s Business Council, offers pictorial horticultural training, supplemented by basic numeracy and literacy skills training. For most of these women, this may be their only opportunity to learn.

Backyard gardens bring self-sufficiency and pride.

With just one growing season behind them, women we visited in November were proud of their achievements. What’s more, they were also proud they were able to keep their income and make decisions on how to use it themselves – their husbands said this was their project, therefore their money.

Young boys in a village of Parwan province, Afghanistan.

This year, with the introduction of simple technology to extend the growing season, they were able to reap a 10-fold increase in the price of late-season cucumbers.

Another means of extending the season for crops is through the addition of storage facilities to keep their produce longer. MEDA is looking for entrepreneurs in each community to invest in storage and potentially rent out compartments to others in the village. A cooperative ownership model has proven unworkable in other settings partially because it is reminiscent of the Soviet era.

But some of the women say they have no money for such storage, even with an equal contribution by MEDA and a loan. Perhaps after three decades of war, planning for the future may be an unfamiliar concept.

While it’s a challenge to deliver microfinance to rural communities, MEDA is trying to build that capacity, creating new tools that will give villagers access to facilities to save or borrow.

MEDA’s work is made possible through funding from CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) and MEDA contributors. MEDA hopes its efforts in Afghanistan are creating the foundation for a sustainable economy, but Afghanistan needs our commitment beyond the four-year life of the project.

Canada has committed troops to the country until 2009, and aid until 2011. MEDA hopes to be there for the longer term – as long as we can and as long as we are needed – in order to see the dividends of hope that Canadian contributions can bring to this devastated country and its resilient people.

Ann Gordon is a senior consultant/project manager for MEDA. She recently returned from her first trip to Afghanistan, where she visited Through the Garden Gate project.