Step by step: Afghan women empowerment

TO SOME, the never-ending strife and turmoil in Afghanistan may seem like a Homeric reprisal of Odyssey where every new chapter opens with a new adventure, more killings and tragedies that seem to follow a skewed logic of their own.

Post 9/11, several organisations and individuals have volunteered to go to Kabul to be part of the rebuilding and reconstruction process.

Many, frustrated by the stark ground reality, have returned to their home countries after a few months or a year or two. The few who have stayed back are trudging on the rocky path of rebuilding, helping people who have been affected by the violence to reconstruct their lives.

One such person is Rosemary Stasek, a Czech American. She is determined to offer all that she has to help rebuild Kabul, her adopted home for five years.

In a city where few women dare to venture into the open without wearing the traditional attire, Stasek bravely strides out in her casual dress.

She works tirelessly with her non-profit organisation "Little Help" on projects for women in prison, providing tents for schools for girls, training women police officers in emergency obstetrics for women prisoners, running beauty training schools, making jams and preserves, teaching new recipes to women and raising money for her charity among other things.

Stasek was in Dubai recently to raise funds for her projects. Prior to 2000, Stasek had a fairly successful career in politics. An economics graduate from Cornell University, she was elected Mayor of Mountview, California, a post she held for four years. She was vice-mayor for one term and was in the process of running for the State Assembly when 9/11 happened.

"All of a sudden we discovered that we (in Mount View] had the largest Afghan-American expat community. They had purposely led a very quiet existence for 20 years and now, all of a sudden, they were thrust into the spotlight."

That winter, she started working with the Afghan American women in the community, raising awareness about their problems and trying to re-educate people on various issues. "By spring, they were talking about going back and looking at what was happening back home in the area of reconstruction. They invited me to join a delegation (to Kabul] and I was very honoured."

Stasek did not expect to immediately fall in love with Afghanistan.

"My impression of Kabul was that it would have one of the two immediate effects on you — either you would be back on the plane vowing never to return, or it would embed itself somewhere in your mind and you can never quite get rid of it. I think what happened to me was the latter."

She was there for three weeks, meeting different people helping rebuild the government network. "When I returned (to the United States), I wanted to be involved in the reconstruction (work in Kabul). I started looking around at what organisations would be working there and what projects were going on. All the big players were talking about reconstruction, the US aid and the usual things. But everything was moving so slowly and no one was talking about things that 'pulled' me."

So she did the inevitable. "I started my own non-profit, called Little Help. I had just lost my State Assembly race and so I was not going to be moving on to the State Legislature. So I spent the next two years, raising small amounts of money going over (to Kabul) for a few weeks during our legislative breaks, working on a project, coming back, raising money, running back to do some more projects."

She did this for two years. "Finally, at the end of 2004, my eight years in office were done and I couldn't run for office any more. I could sit around and be the grumpy ex-mayor who complains about how much better things were when I was the mayor or I could take some time off, go back to Kabul and work on things which I never had the time to do."

Stasek gave up her home, packed her furniture, deposited it in a storage unit and decided to "go to Kabul for just a few months. Five years later, my stuff is still in the storage unit.

"I remember the sight of the airport as the plane began its landing in Kabul. Parked on either side of the runway were the former fleet of Ariana that had been bombed by the US military, the very first attack after September 11. Every single aircraft had been so perfectly bombed in the middle that there were gaping holes in place of the roof and all you could see were the folded over noses of these planes pointing at the runway."

After three weeks when she had to return to the US, she had her first epiphany. "I was climbing the stairs of the plane and sobbing uncontrollably. That was when I realised I had fallen in love with the place."

Stasek knew she would be coming back soon. She did.

"Kabul has been home ever since, and one feels you have a front row seat while watching the rebirth of a country."

Initially, the optimism was exhilarating. The fact that she was involved in some way in rebuilding the place helped her continue with the good work. "It is really an addictive feeling," she says.

"I got to Kabul at the fall of the Taliban. The place was rubble. It had no government. The city at the time had a 9.30pm curfew and the militia was in charge. Throughout that time, the militia had all sorts of tribal chieftains and warlords trying to flex their muscles and run their areas as their fiefdoms."

For those who left the country 25 years ago, the sight must have been devastating, she says. The Kabul they remembered was one that was beautiful, civilised, sophisticated. A city where folks led a very charming life. "And to come back now to both physical and cultural changes must have been shocking."

Stasek and her team were originally housed in "the most posh part of Kabul, the Wazir Akbar Khan area". Though the area has a fading look to it, it boasts palatial mansions and is the only area that hasn't been bombed as every person who took over Kabul aspired to live in one of those mansions built by the Soviets, the Taliban or now, by the militiamen.

"We lived in a crumbling old place which had a generator, a water pump and a faucet out of which water would occasionally trickle. As we moved around the city on our first rounds, we had to pass through several checkpoints set up by different warring groups. There were numerous checkpoints to pass and if one had missed the 9.30pm checkpoint, there was a particular password you had to give at the checkpoint. In our case, it was naumishal (the essence of the night).



"Once, when our delegation was returning beyond curfew time, our driver, who was stopped at the checkpoint, was so intimidated that he forgot the password. The men immediately surrounded us, their guns pointed at the guard, ready to shoot. We broke out into a sweat and were yelling the password on top of our voices before they let us off!

Stasek belongs to that breed of volunteers who relentlessly work on projects others do not want to get their hands dirty with, so to speak. Her volunteer work encompasses the less glamorised, lesser-known projects which did not, and still do not, earn international media coverage.

Yet she remains undaunted. She works her feet off, raising funds for her projects, trying to draw the attention of international agencies to fields that need help but have been overlooked. One of the main reasons why she has managed to garner so much respect and support in the Afghan community. It is also the reason why she is able to live alone, without a night guard, drive her own car and walk around without a headscarf. "I do not say that I don't care if people in Kabul don't respect me. In a country like Afghanistan, respect is all you have. How you get people to work with you is based entirely on your reputation."

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