Afzenda "Long Live Afganistan"

AFZENDA

About us:

WELCOME TO THE AFZENDA WEBSITE!

About Afghanistan

About Afzenda

AFZENDA is a shortening of the 501(c)3 Non Governmental Organization's, or NGO's proper name, Afghanistan Zendabad or "Long Live Afghanistan.

Our Mission

is to help widows and poor families run their own businesses. In a country as poor as Afghanistan, starting small home businesses with which people can augment what little income they have is a priority activity. Afzenda is committed to helping run small businesses by training them in marketable skills, providing funds to get started and quality control and locating markets locally and abroad in which to sell their products.

Ahmad Shah DURRANI unified the Pashtun tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747. The country served as a buffer between the British and Russian empires until it won independence from notional British control in 1919. A brief experiment in democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 Communist counter-coup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan Communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. The USSR withdrew in 1989 under relentless pressure by internationally supported anti-Communist mujahedin rebels. Subsequently, a series of civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that emerged in 1994 to end the country's civil war and anarchy. Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, a US, Allied, and anti-Taliban Northern Alliance military action toppled the Taliban for sheltering Osama BIN LADIN. The UN-sponsored Bonn Conference in 2001 established a process for political reconstruction that included the adoption of a new constitution and a presidential election in 2004, and National Assembly elections in 2005. On 7 December 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan. The National Assembly was inaugurated on 19 December 2005. (from Central Intelligence Agency, The World Fact Book.) more

Bob MacMakin and her wife MaryMacMakin

Mary MacMakin is the founder of AFzenda and her husband Bob MacMakin was the editor of the Parsa Newsletter from 1996 to 2005.

From the beginning I noticed the strong tradition among the women in embroidery, knitting and sewing. I also noticed the need for markets in which to sell their products to bring in income to relieve their poverty and destitution.

In 1996, I started an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization), PARSA, to address these needs. It successfully trained children of widows to be electricians and plumbers and many poor women to produce wool yarn for the rug industry.

In addition, I started a shop in Kabul to sell their goods to ex-pats. This was also successful and these two activities - training and marketing continued up to the end of 2005 when I turned PARSA completely over to another American woman.