Herat village women on path to economic self-reliance

HERAT CITY (Pajhwok): Some women in western Herat province have been trying to become economically self-reliant through initiating small agriculture and poultry farms.

Pajhwok Afghan News reporter travelled to 10 villages in the far-flung PashtonZarghoon district, where majority areas are under Taliban’s control.

In the restive Yousuf Khan village, no sign of development could be seen and the Taliban have changed this area into a security belt.

Despite challenges, some women of this village get together to attend a training from NGO personnel on cultivation of saffron, chicken farming, gardening and poultry farming.

One of RADA NGO trainer is providing training to some women on how to cultivate saffron, use urea and other inputs for the crop.

They listen to the trainers with full interest and carefully watch and learn whatever the trainers tell them.

Najeeba, 40, one of the women in the Yousuf Khan village, has been supporting her 10-member family through saffron cultivation.

She said: “We got trained on saffron cultivation and this crop is beneficial as we earn livelihood from it.”

Zahra, another village woman, said after getting the training about saffron cultivation, she passed on necessary information to her family members.

“Before the training, we used to irrigate saffron crop in summer that weakened the crop, then we decided not to give water to the crop in summer.”

Besides saffron, the village women are trained on small chicken farming among other skills.

Reyhaneh Rezaei, a trainer in saffron cultivation section of an NGO, said that in this project women who lack guardians and are breadwinners for their families are targeted

According to her, they covered ten villages in Pashtun Zarghun district and provided assistance to 10 needy women from each village

“I run the saffron section and 10 villages are covered by us, and we have 10 beneficiaries from each village. In the saffron crop cultivation, we give training to these women and we also give them kits, such as shovels and other tools needed in agriculture.”

Nh/ma

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