Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

A Turning Point for Afghan Women

Afghanistan is the world’s newest democracy, and women are playing a vital role in its epic transformation. Emboldened by a new constitution protecting for the first time the rights of women and girls, they are often putting their lives on the line to help reconstruct and stabilize their war-ravaged nation.

Afghan Women Leaders Connect was formed shortly after September 11, 2001 to not only recognize their courageous contributions, but directly support and actively promote them through one of the first private donors’ networks to provide education and training, healthcare, economic opportunities, and equal-rights protection for women and children.

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has been an integral part of the Connect program. We established the original fund and grantmaking mechanisms and through our continuing due-diligence services we are ensuring that all grant monies are channeled to effective, responsible and financially sound organizations.

With the generous help of donors in the United States, Connect issued 16 grants in 2004 that paved the way for efforts like legal reform and judicial training projects; voter mobilization; the construction of a multi-service women’s resource center in a remote village in Bamiyan province; economic empowerment projects like shawl-weaving and poultry farming; and delivery of literacy classes and computer training.

The unmistakable signs of economic growth in Afghanistan are testimony to the success of this growing effort, and others like it. Indeed, through their work — heroic in its own way — nonprofit groups like Afghan Women Leaders Connect are helping to bring a new spirit and the prospect of real, sustainable change to one of the world’s most tormented countries.