MEET, ANISA

Anisa, 38-years-old, lives in Deh Meskin village in Bagram district of Parwan province with her five daughters, two sons and husband. Anisa went to school only until she was 12-years-old, so she is determined for her children to receive an education, with five currently in school (and two yet to start). Anisa earnt money sporadically from tailoring, while her husband earns roughly AFN 9,000 (US $115) per month from working at a petrol station.

Before joining to HiH Af project, Anisa was a member of CARE Afghanistan’s “Every Voice Counts” programme, which works to politically empower 

women and support them to exert greater influence in political processes at local and national level. She joined the project because she wished to improve her tailoring business.

She says of the Hand in Hand training, “We learnt a lot about self-help and how to manage a group. Now I know how to calculate and record expenses, incomes and can count my profit.”

Since Anisa was already running a small enterprise, she got AFN 3,000 (US$38) as loan from her Self-Help Group and bought an overlock machine (that allows the use to sew over the edge of one or two pieces of cloth for edging, hemming, or seaming). Previously, she would have to pay other tailors AFN 100 (US$1.27) to use their machine.

Anisa now earns roughly AFN 6,000 (US $77) per month, with her community members favouring her services to other tailors in the community. She uses the income to buy food for her family and items for her children’s schooling, such as stationary, as well as for extra cloth for her enterprise. She also puts AFN 700 (US$9) aside each month to repay her loan.

Anisa will soon undertake vocational training using a tailoring start-up toolkit she will access through Hand in Hand Afghanistan. This will help her to expand her work and supply more customers, subsequently boosting her income.

Talking about the future of her enterprise, Anisa explained that she hopes to purchase more tailoring machines and hire some workers so she can increase her output.

“I am planning to sell my products in bigger markets”, with Cherekar, capital city of Parwan province already in mind.

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