Disaster relief efforts of native women's organizations: the director of the Afghan Institute of Learning explains why women's groups are so vital in responding to the litany of recent disasters in Afghanistan.

Recent disasters around the globe including mudslides, earthquakes, the tsunami, hurricanes, war, famine, and epidemic disease like AIDS have mobilized extensive response efforts. These relief efforts have multiple goals: to reach as many people as possible, to mobilize efforts as quickly as possible, to meet the immediate survival needs of the affected population and to ensure, in the longer term, the reconstruction and full recovery of the affected area. However, international relief organizations face severe challenges in meeting the needs of diverse populations and promoting long-term rehabilitation in regions that were plagued with poverty even before the disaster. Additionally, the special needs of women and children are often not sufficiently addressed within the scope of massive relief efforts, making them more vulnerable to hardship in the wake of a disaster.

In 1995, I founded an Afghan women's organization to respond to the needs of Afghan refugee women and children following the disastrous war with the Soviet Union. Our education and medical services responded to the short-term needs of refugees and our various education and training programs helped them prepare to rebuild their lives. However, disaster continued to batter our nation. The rise of the Taliban resulted in a ban on education, health care and employment for women and girls. We helped many families who fled the country after the rise of this oppressive regime. We also began underground home schools for 3,000 girls in Afghanistan. The US invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 brought more refugees and devastation. Most recently, the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan killed and further dislocated Afghan refugees as well as Pakistanis. After each disaster, the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) responded promptly with urgently needed, culturally relevant assistance to women and children focused on relieving their immediate suffering and helping them prepare to rebuild.

The AIL now employs some 400 people, most of whom are Afghan women. As women who have survived this series of catastrophes and strived to help other women victims, we are well-acquainted with the impact of human-made and natural disasters. Families are torn apart. People lose many or all of their loved ones. Women and children are plunged into poverty when male heads of households die and they have no other way to support themselves. Cities and villages become impoverished as massive numbers of homes and businesses are destroyed. People have nowhere to live, no heat, no electricity, no schools, no clinics, no sanitation, no food and no clean water. Deprivation leads to desperation and people are forced to migrate from their homes. They become separated from their communities, their extended family networks and what other sources of support that remained. In times of war, in addition to all of these other hardships, violence continues and insecurity is pervasive.

People are scared, unsafe, psychologically traumatized, depressed and stressed. They ask themselves, "What will happen to us next?" They do not laugh or smile. People become singularly focused on survival, which consumes all of their thoughts and energy. They sometimes turn to unethical behavior in order to survive. Values, culture, loyalties and any sense of community are often eroded and people can lose their capacity to feel and their sensitivity to others. Under these circumstances, women often become the victims of violence, which becomes a part of home life as well as community life. Women are abused by their spouses and families and are unsafe outside of their homes as well. Some women in Afghanistan have resorted to self-immolation as they become overwhelmed and can endure no more violence and hardship.

Within this context of violence, fear and suspicion, conservatism increases. Men and women embrace fundamentalist ideologies in the hope that a return to fundamental values will bring them some relief. In order to keep women and children safe, men keep them hidden inside their homes, isolated from services they need like education and health care. If schools are being burned, parents keep their children home in order to protect them. People become intensely suspicious of foreigners and others who are regarded as outsiders. In Afghanistan, the devastation resulting from the Soviet invasion convinced many that all outsiders would be intent on destroying their religion, culture and families.

Women's lives are at risk when they are isolated from health care, education and employment. Relief organizations understand the importance of reaching these women but find it both dangerous and nearly impossible. Well-intentioned relief efforts are often unsuccessful and can ignite unforeseen controversies, leading to violence and tragedy. In order to be successful, organizations must first be able to alleviate fear and build trust. They have to be able to convince communities that their programs will be safe and effective and will restore community values.

Native women's organizations are often best-positioned to reach out to and find culturally appropriate solutions for women in need. In most cases, they are already known and respected by the community and are not subject to the same suspicion as outsiders.

In the context of Afghanistan after the 2001 bombing, international relief organizations struggled to reach Afghan women living in refugee camps in Pakistan with critical health and education services. However, they could not reach the many women who could not venture out of their homes to receive services from outsiders. Women were dying for want of these services but no organization could find an effective way to reach them until the AIL developed Women's Learning Centers--program sites close to women's homes at community-designated locations. These centers provide comprehensive health, training and education services to small groups of women. Community leaders decide which services will be offered and assist in choosing the female staff. Men are not allowed to enter unless the women and community concur. Because Women's Learning Centers are established with the assistance and support of the men in the community, women and men work together to keep the programs safe. Women's Learning Centers have become so successful at reaching Afghan women refugees that the AIL quickly adopted this model to provide all of its services. One of the most important factors in the AIL'S success was that it had the trust of the local communities it served because it is an Afghan rather than foreign organization. Ultimately, other local, government and international organizations were also able to use the Women's Learning Center model for their programs, as stability increased and trust issues within the communities subsided somewhat.

Within this disastrous context of war and trauma, the AIL has been able to innovate and safely implement dozens of other controversial programs to help women and girls. We have founded girls' schools in communities that were not previously open to the idea of education for females. We offer family planning services and contraception and founded a women's university. We have trained women who have opened their own educational centers and become political appointees and candidates for parliament. Our female teacher trainers have developed such an excellent reputation for quality programs that they have been repeatedly invited to train male teachers. An educational environment in which women train men is unprecedented in Afghan society and is a true model for gender equality. Our underground home school program during the Taliban regime operated for years with no incidence of violence against any staff member or student because communities participated in the program and protected it. We now provide education and health services to 350,000 women and children each year at 34 locations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our services not only provide critical, lifesaving assistance to women and children but we also prepare them with income-generating skills, education and training that will help them build better lives for a more peaceful and prosperous future. The AIL has been successful because our staff is made up of Afghan women who understand Afghan communities and who can build trust in a way that international organizations cannot.

INVESTING IN NATIVE WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS

Women are usually best equipped to create change for themselves and other women, even in the midst of disaster. They can communicate with and understand other women and the problems they face, as well as band together to confront their common problems.

Native women who have experienced the same war or disastrous event are better able to assist their countrywomen because they have shared in the hardship and understand its impact. Change is a slow process and requires long-term commitment and dedication. Native women can help other women immediately during a disaster and will also be there to work toward long-term reconstruction because they are rebuilding their own communities.

In spite of the manifest advantages of investing in native women's organizations, they are rarely given responsibility in the wake of a disaster. Often men do relief work. Native women development and aid workers face special barriers in their work. However, with the necessary training and appropriate security measures, women can have a voice in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of their own lives, families, communities and countries. Funders can ensure that women and children receive assistance that responds to their unique needs by devoting resources to the training and extra security women's organizations need to be successful. In fact, funders can build up native women's organizations by training and funding them before a disaster so that women's organizations have a strong infrastructure that can be mobilized immediately and effectively when disaster strikes. The AIL has effectively responded to many disasters because our supporters have helped us build our organization before, during and after major disaster relief initiatives.

In summary, native women's organizations like the Afghan Institute of Learning are critical to an effective response to disaster. They are especially dedicated and committed to relieving suffering and achieving lasting advancements for themselves and their countrywomen. An investment in native women's organizations' disaster relief efforts is an investment that ensures women will have a role and a voice in the process of reconstruction. When women have leadership roles and when their perspective is heard, families, communities and countries will recognize women's concerns and women's rights. When women are involved, the reconstruction process can be a process that advances and protects women's rights and an opportunity to promote gender equality.

SAKENA YACOOBI is the executive director of the Afghan Institute of Learning, an NGO that provides teacher training, health and education services to 350, 000 Afghan women and children annually, www.creatinghope.org/ail.htm. She is a recipient of the Democracy Award of the National Endowment for Democracy, the Women's Rights Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation and the Peacemakers in Action Award of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding.