WUNRN
Afghanistan - Women & Media
"Mirror of
Women" – Narrating the Lives of Everyday Women in Afghanistan
|
Nai/Internews
Women
journalists in Afghanistan who participated in Internews trainings and who
produce "Mirror of Women." |
For the first time in Afghanistan, a radio program is presenting the lives of ordinary women, told in their own voices. Called “Mirror of Women,” the series has been broadcast in four major cities, Kabul, Herat, Mazar e Sharif and Jalal Abad. So far over 30 segments of 12-15 minutes each have aired.
The project was funded by UNESCO and implemented by Nai, Supporting Open Media in Afghanistan, a media development NGO that Internews helped create.
Even though project funding has ended, stations in three cities are continuing to produce and air the series on a biweekly basis, in, Herat, Mazar e Sharif and Jalal Abad.
Here is a transcript of one of the programs, aired last November by Nargis Radio, in Jalal Abad, in Nangarhar province.
A contributor named Najiba narrates the following story about her neighbor:
There was a woman in my neighborhood who had three kids, two daughters and a son. She was living in a very poorly made house and was working at the other houses as a washerwoman to survive and bring food for her kids.
She had gotten married to a 60-year-old man and after a while she learned that the husband had another wife with more kids.
At the beginning she had a good life with the husband, but later the stepsons and daughters were very angry that she had married their father.
The husband later had a heart attack and died and the stepchildren started to make her life miserable day by day. A few months after the husband passed away, the stepsons started beating up her and at the end told her to leave the house with no belongings.
She left the house and started to live with one of her husband’s relatives. After a few months she was forced to leave this house too and started to rent a house and work at other houses as washerwoman. She was in a very bad situation but was very brave and was working a lot, because her kids were too small to work. By working she paved the ground for her kids to go to school and study.
Now she is working as washerwoman but is feeling very lucky because her kids can study and go to school.
She is always saying, “When we have the courage to make decisions, then we are lucky and we are blessed and successful.”
One of the other things she always says is, “I am very lucky that my daughters and son will serve Afghanistan in the future and I am very happy that I am able to solve the problems whether small or large. I have the courage to cope with them.”
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