Title: Hassena's new venture despite Afghanistan's escalating conflict.

When a disabled woman opens her own tailor shop

Date & location: Kabul, January 2007 , April 2006
Sound: Natural with Dari and English speech
Duration: 6'35''
Produced by: Jon Bjorgvinsson, Virginie Louis
Source: ICRC – Access all
Reference: VF-F-CR-F-00908-D

For broadcast tapes and information on footage: Virginie Louis, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva,

This report will be distributed free-to-air and rights free over the Eurovision News Exchange on 12 June 2007 at 11h45 GMT in the ENS slot. It is free of rights and free of charge to all broadcasters

Start at first frame

00:00 Market streets of Kabul. Ruins of former cinema.
00:27 Disabled woman and man on the streets
00:39 Hassena Jan goes to the market place in Kabul old center and buys buttons
01:33 Two customers entering Hassena Jan' shop
01:52 A disabled apprentice, Fereshta, 15 years old with dwarf syndrome, takes measurements of customers.
Hassena Jan makes trials on her customer.

02:36 INTERVIEW CUSTOMER IN BURKA
"According to our habits and customs we are not allowed to go shopping outside, especially where the tailors are men. That's why we prefer coming here to be among ladies".

02:47 Hassena Jan teaches sewing classes to two handicapped apprentices
various sewing

03:04 INTERVIEW HASSENA JAN, HEAD OF TAILOR SHOP
"I am disabled that's why I know and feel the suffering of others who have the same problem. It's the reason I chose to teach other disabled people who have the same problems so that they become the feeder of their families in the future".

Hassena Jan coaching Nahida, a 15 year-old disabled girl with cerebral palsi.

03:43 Nahida goes to the Orthopaedic Center in Kabul
03:59 Young child with orthoses to both legs because of a congenital disease
04:04 Nahida is being taken care of by orthopaedist to adjust her orthosis and make it fit to her leg to ease the pain which comes from the orthosis
04:30 Alberto Cairo, ICRC Head of Orthopaedic Programmes examines mine-victim patient and tests his new prosthesis.
05:22 Alberto making exercises with disabled little boy

05:44 INTERVIEW ALBERTO CAIRO
" I give you a leg, yes, It's a great job, a great help but.. but what? It's not enough. You must be put back into society with a role you must be able to go to school if you are a child, to learn a job if you are a teenager, to start a job, a business if you want, if you are an adult.
So, only when a person is put back in society with a role the job is finished".

06:10 Alberto Cairo talking to Hassena Jan at the sewing workshop at the ICRC Orthopaedic Center in Kabul where the apprentices come with their teacher to have their newly acquired skills monitored and receive further training by ICRC tailor trainers.

06:35 ENDS


STORY

Hassena's new venture despite Afghanistan's escalating conflict.

When a disabled woman opens her own tailor with three disabled apprentices in Kabul's devastated neighbourhood.


Since 2006 the conflict pitting Afghan and international forces against the armed opposition has significantly intensified in the south and east of the country and is spreading to the north and west. The result has been a growing number of civilian casualties.

While development work is crucial to the future of Afghanistan, the persistence of armed conflict means that many civilians remain in dire need of emergency assistance. Against this worrying backdrop, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Afghan Red Crescent Society are stepping up their efforts to protect and assist the most vulnerable, in particular by actively helping local medical facilities to cope with the increasing number of war-wounded in the south and east. In addition, the ICRC is visiting more and more persons detained by the Afghan authorities or international forces in connection with the armed conflict – 2,424 over the past year – in order to ensure that they are being treated humanely and in accordance with international law.

The fact that 2007 marks the 20th year of the ICRC’s uninterrupted presence in Afghanistan is a telling indication of the immense and unending suffering of the Afghan people over decades of successive conflicts.

In such an environment, it has been impossible not to assist the victims of an ongoing armed conflict without balancing emergency response and development activities. Helping the Afghan people to cope by helping themselves is of the utmost importance to the International Committee of the Red Cross. As Alberto Cairo, Head of Orthopaedic programme for 17 years in Kabul says " I give you a leg, yes, It's a great job, a great help but.. but what? It's not enough… So, only when a person is put back in society with a role the job is finished".

For a woman like Hassena Jan, a disabled person who suffers from short limbs problems because of Polio, it is very difficult to earn a living and feed her family. Mother of three children, she decided to become a professional tailor and be the bread feeder of the family as her husband is disabled because of a mine-accident. In the neighbourhood of Dah Masang, Kabul, she opened her tailoring shop thanks to a first loan of 14 000 Afghanis (213 Euros) for which she already returned 9000 Afghanis (140 Euros) after a year and a half of her tailoring activity. In fact, she returns 800 Afghanis each month, at the same time as her apprentices pass an examination. In four months time she plans to be independent. The apprentices receive from the ICRC 60 Afghanis per day and Haseena Jan gets 80 Afghani per day to teach them. The sewing machines are worth 1700 Afghani. They have been donated to Hassena Jan. The social reinsertion programmes were created to help disabled get back on track thanks to small loans and training support. It is nearly 400, 000 euros that are lent with no interest by the ICRC every year.


Hassena Jan' team of apprentices is composed of three other disabled. Fereshtah Rahimi (with white scarf) is 15 years old and suffers from dwarf syndromes. Nevertheless, she goes to school in Grade 7 and has been studying sewing for 6 months thanks to a two-year apprenticeship program. Nahida Jalali (in black) is 15 years old and has lived all her life in a refugee camp in Pakistan. Her family moved back to Kabul in 2003. She lives with a cerebral Palsy and has been attending Hassena Jan' sewing classes for 10 months. She does not attend school. Marzia (in Brown), 17 years, is deaf and mute. She has been enrolled in the sewing class for 3 months and has 9 months to go. After that, they will all try to make a living from sewing.

Women customers like coming here as they are taken care of by other women. As one customer Fatima (wearing a burka) says "According to our habits and customs we are not allowed to go shopping outside, especially where the tailors are men. That's why we prefer coming here to be among ladies". It is the 4th time she orders a dress from Hassena' shop.

Since 1988, the ICRC helped 4,524 disabled with a small loan programme to start a business and become a shop owner, a TV or bicycle repairman, a tailoring, a carpenter, a welder or a blacksmith… It also entered 1,164 disabled for vocational training and sent 1,489 disabled to school. As Alberto Cairo says disability cannot be treated alone; "You must be put back into society with a role you must be able to go to school if you are a child, to learn a job if you are a teenager, to start a job, a business if you want, if you are an adult".

At the Orthopaedic center in Kabul, Awisha Afzalzada, physiotherpist in the female section fits a new orthosis Nahida Jalali. Because of her cerebral Palsy, Nahida has an increased tone in her flexor muscles. It needs to be fixed as the contact with the plastic hurts her foot.

Today the orthopaedic project is spread over six centres, in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Jalalabad, Gulbahar and Faizabad. Each of the centres has five main activities: production of prostheses (artificial limbs, both legs and arms); production of orthoses (appliances such as splints, braces, callipers, corsets...); physical rehabilitation; social re-integration of the disabled (employment, micro-credit, education, vocational training, apprenticeship); training of local staff.

All components of the limbs and appliances are made in the Kabul workshop and sent to the other centres. The six centres can produce up to 600 limbs, 700 appliances, 1,200 pairs of crutches and 100 wheelchairs each month.

Originally intended only for people disabled by war wounds, this assistance was extended to all motor-disabled patients in 1995. At present, treatment is provided to patients affected by loss of limbs, polio, spinal injuries, congenital deformities, cerebral palsy and any other deformity. Six expatriates train and assist over 500 local workers, of whom 60 are women. All the local workers are disabled.