Speeches Shim
Promote is a partnership between the Government of Afghanistan and the United States Agency for International Development to secure the gains made by Afghan women in the past decade while providing a new generation of Afghan women with the leadership skills to make vital contributions to Afghanistan’s development in governance, civil society, and the economy. As the economic and business component of Promote, the Women in the Economy (WIE) activity is key to achieving the objectives of Afghanistan’s Transformation Decade by empowering Afghan women from across the country to gain the skills, voices, and resources to contribute to economic growth, reduce poverty levels, and influence workplace policies in response to the needs of women in the economy.
The USAID Promote: Women in Government project seeks to increase and advance the number of women employed in the Afghan government by creating professional development opportunities for female high school and university graduates. Following a year-long internship program, USAID Promote: Women in Government facilitates job placement for internship graduates within the Afghan civil service. The USAID Promote: Women in Government project leverages relationships with Afghan government counterparts to develop and implement key policy reforms that empower women working in the government, including non-discrimination, anti-harassment, and other working standards that foster a female-friendly workplace. The project also implements innovative, nationwide communications and outreach campaigns to expand the impact of project interventions and promote local stakeholder support for women working outside the home. The project operates in the provincial hubs of Kabul, Herat, Balkh, Kandahar, and Nangarhar.
Musharikat, which means ‘partnership’ or ‘participation’ in Dari and Pashto, is designed to build a cadre of 5,000 activists and 300 civil society organizations (CSOs) from all 34 provinces to more effectively advocate for and advance women’s equality and empowerment in Afghanistan.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) supported the Turquoise Mountain Trust to showcase traditional Afghan handicrafts entitled “Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan” at the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art in Washington, D.C. The exhibition, which started in March 2016 and ended in January 2017, told the story of how the traditional artisan community of Murad Khane in Kabul, Afghanistan, was revived through the preservation of its traditional architecture. The exhibition enabled visitors to interact with Afghan artisans engaged in producing traditional handicrafts. The project helped USAID create jobs, build links between Afghan producers and the international market, and highlighted USAID’s support of women in business. The exhibition was a highly visible and tangible USAID success story that enabled U.S. audiences to see Afghanistan, in the vision of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, as “open and engaged” with the wider world.
Afghan teachers are learning new classroom management techniques and innovative approaches to communicating with students through the USAID-funded Afghan Children Read (ACR) Program. USAID supports the implementation of so-called Teacher Learning Circles in Kabul, Herat, Nangarhar and, Laghman provinces to raise the level of classroom instruction and thereby help students learn.
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