LEADERSHIP TRAINING
Oklahoma nonprofit helps Afghan and Rwandan women start and grow companies
After Hasina Aimaq's father died when she was a baby, her Afghan mother began sewing and selling clothes to care for her daughter and herself on her own. It was a bold move 30 years ago, when women in Afghanistan couldn't hold jobs and felt forced to marry just to get by.
Today's Afghanistan is a far more favorable environment for female entrepreneurs — thanks in large part to the Oklahoma City-based Institute for the Economic Empowerment of Women (IEEW)
With the motto “Peace through Business,” the small nonprofit — in conjunction with Michiganbased Northwood College, the National Association of Women Business Owners, AT&T, Bank of America, the T. Boone Pickens Foundation and other corporate sponsors — has provided leadership training and mentorship programs to Afghan women since 2007 and Rwandan women since 2008.
“I've learned to focus on my target and not give up,” said Aimaq, a 27-year-old married
mother of two, who was in Oklahoma City last week with the latest delegation from both countries.
Aimaq took over her mother's company, which has grown from neighborhood sales of traditional clothing to global sales of traditional and modern designs. The firm, Hasina Design, now employs eight and recently showed modern dresses made from burqas in Milan.
“When people think of Afghanistan, they think war; they think conflict. But we have many hidden beauties,” Aimaq said.
IEEW arranged for the international participants to visit sister companies in Oklahoma. Aimaq visited Boutique One in Nichols Hills Plaza, while fellow countrywoman Nazila Kakar — who's 23 and has a rural food production company of dairy products, jams and pickles — toured Wagon Creek Creamery in Helena.
“I grew up on my father's chicken farm and loved it," Kakar said. "But I had no idea about economics, marketing and finances (before IEEW).”
To date, IEEW has graduated 755 Afghan and Rwandan women who've created some 16,000 jobs in their respective countries.
Oklahoma City businesswoman Terry Neese was asked by President George W. Bush in 2006 to start the organization, following the 1996 to 2001 Taliban years in Afghanistan, during which many Afghan women were forced to close their businesses.
Then, Oklahoma Christian University President Emeritus Mike O'Neal, in 2008, asked Neese to extend the program to women of the African country of Rwanda, where the 1994 genocide resulted in 1 million deaths in 90 days.
“Most of the men were killed, jailed or sought asylum, so it fell to the women to step up,” Neese said.
IEEW Rwandan in-country facilitator Chantal Munanayire alone lost 76 relatives.
Before IEEW, Munanayire, a 49-yearold married mother of five, said she used to be “shy and didn't know how to talk about my business.” She formerly ran an automotive garage and today owns a real estate company that partners with the Chinese to buy and sell homes in Rwanda.
Women have come a long way in both countries. They hold 63% of Rwanda's parliament — the world's highest percentage of seats occupied by women — and 27% in Afghanistan.
Afghan in-country IEEW facilitator Manizha Wafeq, a 33-year-old married mother of one, said she's been “strongly influenced
by Dr. Terry, who tells participants, `If you're running a business and not involved in politics and policymaking, the government is running your business.'”
She's currently considering a presidential appointment to a government post.
Meanwhile, IEEW graduates in Afghanistan have established women-only chamber of commerce in Kabul. And in Rwanda, a women's business center was built in 2016 in the capital city of Kigali.