17 June 2009 - The top United Nations envoy in Afghanistan, Kai Eide is today visiting the eastern province of Nangarhar.

He visited a village in Behsood district and heard about a vocational training programme for women.

Village elders told the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan that the Qali Ishaq village desperately needed schools and income-generating programmes to enhance the poor economic status of the villagers.

“If possible, please help build a school in this village,” a girl named Sajida, 12, who is one of 32 women attending a three-month long tailoring project, told Mr Eide.

The villagers said only two girls, among 1,000 people living there, attended a school in the provincial capital of Jalalabad.

“People are conservative here and they don’t send their daughters to school,” a village elder told the UN envoy, while stressing the need for vocational training for women.

The tailoring project in the village has been implemented by the local Community Development Council under the Government’s National Solidarity Programme.

The women – aged between 12 and 45 – who were attending the training programme under a tree, said they will start stitching clothes by themselves and then sell them, after learning tailoring skills from the training project, which is the first of its kind in the area.

All the women gave a smile when the UN envoy, after intently listening to them, added his own personal touch to the tailoring programme: “My mother had exactly the same machine,” said Mr Eide, pointing towards the tailoring machines the women were using.

The village elders welcomed Mr Eide in a traditional way, by putting an Afghan turban on his head.

During the day Mr Eide, who is also the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), will meet the provincial Governor Gul Agha Sherzai, members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the local Provincial Reconstruction Team.

By Tilak Pokharel, UNAMA