Widowed hope.

In Afghanistan, there are nearly one million widows, out of a total population estimated at about 27 million. Many of the women are widows as a result of war. The Christian Science Monitor reported about what it means to be a widow in that country: "Widows are very dependent on their in-laws. Particularly the husband's brothers, the male members of the family, have a lot of say. The widows can lose their homes, they can even lose their children."

"Widows are marginalized," continued the article, and other societal norms further stack the deck against them: "Women are not free to walk to a market and sell their goods.... Because women do not ride bicycles, they must walk miles." To help Afghani widows rise above poverty, two American women from Massachusetts who were 9/11 widows, Susan Retick and Patti Quigley, created their own charity--which got its start when the women donated much of the money they had received in compensation for their husbands' deaths.

The money raised goes toward assistance programs meant to give Afghani women freedom, a sense of self-worth, and a future for their children. The women in Afghanistan may be given "chickens, an incubator and three-month supply of feed" so that they can sell and eat the eggs; or they may be given a cow and a calf so that they can sell the milk; or they may be taught to make leather goods or how to spin silk.

Because the Afghani women gain financial independence from their male relatives through the program, they can direct more of their own futures and do what is of primary importance to them--send their children to school. Retick and Quigley started the charity in 2003 and "collected $325,000 in the first two years. This year they hope to raise $250,000." Retick and Quigley visited Afghanistan earlier this year to meet some of the Afghani women who have received help and to make sure that the Afghanis' lives were, in fact, improving.

But why did the women undertake this project? They told MSNBC.com that they were so aware of the great support that they received in the United States after 9/11 that they couldn't "turn their backs on those in need in other parts of the world." Susan also recalled a saying that she read in a grief counseling book: "You can't always choose the roles you play in life, but you can choose the way in which you play them."