Dear Friends,
Many of you no doubt are wondering and worried about Rubia’s colleagues and friends in Afghanistan. If you haven’t been part of the Rubia community for long, you may not be aware of our beginnings, working with Afghan women who were refugees living in Pakistan. This was prior to 9/11, when over one million Afghans had fled from the brutal Taliban regime.
I had been contacted by an old friend, an Afghan whose family had fled to Pakistan, and he asked if I could help them. After going to Pakistan and observing their dire situation, I felt compelled to do something, particularly for the women; they were destitute and living in dangerous conditions. The women who lacked educational opportunities but were eager to earn income, shared with me that they were expert embroiderers. In response, we formed Rubia as a community initiative for women to help each other and themselves, using their own handicraft skills to earn money for their families.
The project grew organically and expanded once these refugee families were able to return to their home villages in eastern Afghanistan. Hundreds of families took part in Rubia and it transformed their lives, prioritizing literacy, income generation, and health.
Over the past 20 years, Rubia has grown from strength to strength, and frequently has been showcased as one of the only successful such projects in a country that was full of dubious and failed NGOs, women’s advocacy projects and the like. What accounted for Rubia’s success? From the very beginning, we focused on sustained relationships with individual women, deeply believing that change comes from the ground up—not imposed top-down. Furthermore, Rubia has been led in Afghanistan by the community it serves, from embroidery design and materials to homebased schooling to quality and quantity of work. The long-term engagement in the rural villages developed into long-term relationships creating deep trust. Now the lives of those who led the project are under threat.
One of the families that has been working with us since the beginning now finds itself in peril. As you no doubt are aware, the Taliban has been executing Afghans who had associated with the US occupiers. Rubia was always supported not only by people like yourselves, but also with international development aid from the US Government. This means that our dear friends of 20 years are at risk of being killed simply for their tireless commitment to work with foreigners for the betterment of their communities.
In 2006 Rubia sponsored Hafiza (last name omitted for safety) and her toddler son to come to the USA, where they met some of you. She exhibited Rubia handicrafts at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, and travelled the country giving talks and demonstrations. Hafiza told me repeatedly over the years that I saved her life. She clarified that when we first met, she was depressed, with seven small children living as refugees in squalor in Lahore, Pakistan, and no means of support. She explained that Rubia gave her life back to her. It provided her the opportunity to educate her daughters; it taught her to be a leader in her community and extended family; she has leveraged her acquired skills in many ways, including working as a social worker for women in recovery. We are in awe of the profound change that she and her colleagues have effected in their communities. It has been our privilege and honor to play a facilitating role.
However, now we are terrified that rather than ‘saving’ her life, her association with Rubia might in fact jeopardize not only her life, but the lives of her husband, children and grandchildren. We are working hard trying to help her with visas, asylum claims and other logistics. We have been in touch over the past week with people in the US State Department, immigration and asylum lawyers, and our senators and congressional representatives.
Many of you have asked how you can help. Thank you for your concern. We will be back in touch once we hear from our Afghan partners what they would like us to do to support them.
Sincerely,
Rachel
