BAMYAN - Members of the Women Shura in the capital Nili city of Dai Kundi province will have funding support from the United Nations when they embark on their livelihood project soon.

During a comprehensive meeting with staff from the the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Department of Rural Reconstruction (DoRR) last week, the women from Pay-i-Nili village proposed several livelihood activities for possible funding by UNHCR.

Mr Jawad Wafa, the UNHCR project officer in the Central Highlands Region, met with the Shura members “in order to identify small vocational skills training activities that could be led by women within the community.”

“The feedback and analysis focused on embroidery, tailoring and slipper making as different options to assist women with income generation programmes in order to lessen the degree of poverty among the poor families,” added Mr Wafa.

UNAMA joined UNHCR in the meeting where, “having looked at all the three proposed activities, analysing previous similar women-related projects in Nili, it was unanimously concluded to take up a tailoring project as a most suitable activity.”

“In this project, women will be taught tailoring skills to a higher standard so they can get employment in the future,” according to Wafa, who added that UNHCR is exploring ways to engage with women's groups in Dai Kundi via livelihood trainings that UNHCR will propose for funding by its partner NGOs.

UNHCR also toured UNAMA around two ongoing livelihood projects that it had kicked off by funding earlier livelihood trainings in the village of Sar-i-Nili south of the Government Centre.

One was an embroidery project for the women in the village; while the other project upslope was a honey-bee-keeping project that targeted 40 vulnerable returnees as well as local households.

The beneficiaries received a comprehensive training on traditional and modern bee-keeping and sustainable honey production in September to December 2011. At the end of the project, each trainee received the kit required to start the activity and “increase the productivity and even improve the quality of the honey produced,” said Mr Wafa.

By UNAMA Bamyan