Letter from the Executive Director
Dear Supporters and Friends,

As military strategies are being debated and politicians are using scare tactics to woo votes, we at Rubia are more certain than ever that our strategy – livelihoods and education, and our tactics – the needle is the hook- are working.  Rubia’s model is a total integration of livelihoods with education, best exemplified by our new ‘Threads of Change’ program described below.  Serving non-literate village women in Afghanistan requires communicating information in creative visual ways, actively engaging participants in discussions, and reinforcing lessons through multiple tactile means.  While this methodology is not new, it is unusual in Afghanistan, where most education continues to promote rote memorization. Women come to Rubia seeking employment through handwork.  We train them to improve their handwork skills through classes that teach life-skills as they literally embroider their way through the lessons.

How Rubia works

Rubia is a long-term partnership between Rubia, Inc., a US based 501 c 3 non-profit organization, and RODA (Rubia Organization for the Development of Afghanistan) an Afghan non-governmental organization. Together the partners work to develop and implement innovative programs for women and children at the grass roots in Afghanistan.  Rubia’s programs address poverty through livelihoods, education, and health.

Rubia, Inc. with its volunteers and staff provides organizational mentorship and technical advice, handwork design and program development, and assistance with sales, marketing, and fundraising. On the ground monitoring is conducted through periodic visits to Afghanistan.

RODA implements programs in education and training, produces handwork in accordance with Fair Trade principles, and identifies needs among its community.  Program design and reporting is a joint effort. RODA is run entirely by Afghan staff.

Stitchery – the ultimate act of liberation

Contrary to the image of stitchery as retro domesticity, imprisoning women in their customary and predictable roles, we view embroidery as a positive and actual means of liberation for Afghan women.

Rubia embroiderers join in the tradition of Judy Chicago and other textile artists around the world whose work, steeped in the heritage of domestic crafts, has helped redefine the boundaries of art. 

Needlework may be the most feminine of art forms, but it is a means to liberation as well. The needle is so much more than a sewing tool:  for Rubia women who first learn to spell their names in stitchery, it is a writing tool as well.  For rural Afghan women, credibility and status can only be raised in a way that is meaningful to their community; within the culture and rhythm of their daily lives.  It will take time for their work to be valued, in the long term, starting slowly and building over time.  We recognize that change in Afghanistan is generational.

Warm wishes for this season,

Rachel Lehr

On August 15th the De Las Kar Center opened its doors to women in the Campa neighborhood of Jalalabad. The center is the first in this squatter’s neighborhood and implements Rubia’s integrated model – combining classes in literacy, stitchery, health and hygiene, human rights, and civics. Neighborhood women are attending in impressive numbers, clamoring to be included in our programs. The wider community in the region has also taken note of De Las Kar. No sooner was the center opened when female election workers came to talk to women at the center about their voting rights, encouraging them to vote in the September elections. Health, hygiene, and civics have always been integral to Rubia’s mission, and the Center will facilitate the newly created Threads of Change curriculum, supported by the non-profit organization Dining for Women, and an Afghan Women’s Empowerment grant from the United States Embassy. In the program, girls and women will be given booklets with a set of illustrations, each bearing a different message. The simple but critically important illustrated lessons highlight hand-washing, breast-feeding, immunization, voting rights and literacy for girls. The underlying idea is for women to gather together not only to reproduce these drawings by embroidering them onto fabric, but with a facilitator they will participate in guided discussions about the issues presented. In the process they will need to stitch the captions in their own languages, thereby reinforcing literacy alongside important life lessons.

Rubia will be the buzz of hundreds of conversations around the country in November as Dining for Women chapters meet to further their mission of helping their members become more globally aware.

The mission of Dining for Women – a women’s educational dinner giving circle with chapters across the United States – is “to empower women living in extreme poverty by funding worldwide programs fostering good health, education and economic self-sufficiency and to cultivate educational dinner circles inspiring individuals to make a profound difference through the power of collective giving.”

After applying for a DfW grant, Rubia was selected as a featured organization based on its support for  women and/or girls who face extreme challenges in developing countries; promoting self-sufficiency, economic independence and/or good health; using funding to directly impact individual’s lives; and providing evidence of long-term sustainability and program success.

Much like Rubia, Dining for Women considers educating its members an integral part of their mission. “Dining in” together once a month, chapter members bring a dish to share, and their “dining out dollars” (what would have been spent if they’d eaten at a restaurant,) are sent to programs empowering women worldwide. The Dining for Women donations collected in November will support development of the new Threads of Change curriculum to be implemented at the De Las Kar Center in Jalalabad.

Please read more about Dining for Women and consider joining a local chapter in your area soon – not only to support Rubia, but also to support the inspired vision of “changing the world one dinner at a time.”

Outside Afghanistan, Rubia works in the same model using stitched handwork as a means for bringing immigrant women together for economic livelihood and education. Rubia’s program in Manchester NH with Burundian, Rwandan, and Congolese resettled refugee women is cutting edge.  These women – from diverse and often enemy backgrounds – share their immigration experience and help one another through Sewing Confidence, now in its 3rd year.  The women, who’ve spent hundreds of hours learning English along with sewing techniques and business skills, are now selling their creations at local stores, special events and festivals. The seamstresses have even had a special order for wedding favors and have advanced to doing custom work. Soon, Rubia will be featuring the ultimate collaboration – a limited edition purse sewn by Sewing Confidence women combining authentic African mud cloth with embroideries from Rubia programs in Afghanistan. These high-end bags will be available on our website but only for a limited time during the holidays. Sewing Confidence is funded by generous individual contributions and grants from the Women’s Fund of NH, Bridge Builder’s Foundation, St Mary’s Bank and the Delaney Sister’s Foundation. Brookside Congregational Church in Manchester provides classroom space.

An exciting new program, born of Rubia’s Sewing Confidence classes in Manchester, will open this winter in New Hampshire. Whole Cloth NH – funded by the New Hampshire Humanities Council – examines the immigrant experience through the medium of cloth. Beginning in January, 2011 a series of presentations and workshops will be offered around the state. Central to the Whole Cloth message is a travelling exhibit of four 3’x 7’ panels which will depict different aspects of the immigrant experience through digitally rendered photographs of the women in the Sewing Confidence program encountering their new home and working with traditional African fabrics. As Manchester was once the textile center of the world market, the panels will visually link this history with the lives of these most recent immigrants. Rubia is currently seeking corporate sponsorships to support the installation of the panels. If your business or organization is interested in sponsoring this exhibit, please contact Susan Bartlett at s.bartlett@rubiahandwork.org.

Share your support for Rubia with others.
Give our Colors of Afghanistan 2011 Calendar to your friends, family, clients and colleagues, this holiday season.

Rubia 2011 Colors of Afghanistan Calendar designed by Beth Gottschling Huber features photographs by award winning photographer Seamus Murphy, author of A Darkness Visible, as well as Fakhria Ibrahimi, Beth Gottschling Huber, Rachel Lehr, and  Zakhria.  Each month’s photograph is paired with an Afghan proverb bearing traditional wisdom.  All proceeds support Rubia's work in Afghanistan.

Price $10 postage paid. Volume discounts available. <MORE>

Rubia’s embroiderers in Afghanistan and seamstresses in New Hampshire rely on sales of their products to keep their work going.  Please support them through purchases of their handwork at local events in New Hampshire:

Christmas Market with a Difference
Nov 4 -5, 10 am to 6 pm, Nov 6, 9 am till noon.
Christ Church at Dartmouth, 40 College St Hanover, NH

Sewing Confidence Holiday Sales
Nov 6, 9:00 am – 2:30 pm
Brookside Congregational Church, 2013 Elm St, Manchester, NH
Nov 20, 9 am – 2 pm
Unitarian Universalist Church of Manchester, 669 Union St, Manchester, NH

Shop for Rubia gifts online at :
www.serrv.org/ProductSearch.aspx?Term=afghanistan
www.realgreengoods.com
www.hopespringsdownriver.com

The glossy and vibrant new magazine Hand/Eye, published by Keith Rekker, features articles about the culture and crafts of Central Asia in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue. Rubia’s Executive Director Rachel Lehr and Board member Beth Gottschling Huber each published articles and photographs. The large format, visually rich magazine is available on line and in print at www.handeyemagazine.com.

Mustafa Kia, featured photographer in the Rubia 2010 calendar, is one of the winners of the Democracy Photo Challenge. The Democracy Photo Challenge is part of the global democracy conversation that leverages social networks and creative challenges to allow people around the world to share, consider, debate, and learn from diverse perspectives on democracy. The winners will be featured in exhibitions at the United Nations in New York and Los Angeles.  We join in congratulating him for his contribution to journalism and democracy in Afghanistan.

Mustafa Kia was born in 1984 in Afghanistan where he works in photography, film making and radio journalism. His work is published in a photo book called Afghanistan’s Treasure, her Children; he has been featured in the Rubia 2010 Calendar with photographs of children, and in an independent human rights commission magazine. As a filmmaker his work includes documentaries about drug addiction, gender equity and women’s rights in Afghanistan.

To learn more about the Democracy Photo Challenge visit: http://www.democracyphotochallenge.america.gov/index.html

For more of Mustafa's work visit: 

http://www.afghanphoto.blogspot.com/ (English)
http://kabul-istan.blogspot.com/ (Persian)