Chris Beales & Abdullah Haiwad in Afghanistan

March 16, 2006

The main purpose of our visit to Kabul - my third since April 2005 and Abdullah’s fourth - was to see the training school for carpet weavers, which started last September and is run by our partners Afghan Co-operation for Development (ACD). Funding for the programme comes from the UK Government’s Department for International Development through the Business Linkages Challenge Fund (which is administered by Emerging Markets Group, who manage our contract). We have also been raising funds through donations, sales of carpets and our “Sponsor a Trainee” programme.

The training school has 50 young trainees now nearing completion of their training. As well as acquiring carpet weaving skills, they are also receiving literacy and numeracy classes and a midday meal. We employ a doctor to visit the site daily and treat any ailments. ACD’s staff of 18 is led by the Project Director, Afizullah Hafizi. The Finance Officer, Arash Yharmand, is responsible for managing the budget and accounting for expenditure, as well as liaising with our UK office. His English is very good and he plays a crucial role in the work. There are a master trainer and ten trainers, and this number will increase in June when the present group of 50 trainees finishes and a new group of 75 starts.

We agreed during this visit to open a factory on a site not far from the training school in the Karte Se area of Kabul. The building is rented from the Government at a reasonable rate but will require some refurbishment. There will be sufficient room for plenty of looms and workers, and the initial workforce will be up to 50 people - the current trainees. Ten looms will be provided, including two which are tall enough to make long carpet runners for people’s halls. Outside there should be sufficient space to wash the carpets, which at present have to be sent elsewhere for washing.

We also agreed that 6 months should be sufficient for trainees to be well enough trained to work in the factory, and, from June ‘06 onwards, we will take 75 new trainees into the training school every 6 months. On completing their training, trainees will be given the option of employment in our factory. Our goal is to provide at least 140 out of 350 people with employment over the 3 year period.

The going rate of pay for carpet production in Kabul is $25 per square metre. We will pay our employees in the factory $35 and continue to provide lunch and medical care, and literacy and numeracy teaching. We would love to find a way to provide a basic health insurance scheme and will be exploring this in the coming months. Our partners at ACD estimate that a weaver can produce approximately two square metres of carpet per month.

As well as spending time almost every day at the training school, we had a number of strategic meetings with Government ministries and others. At the Ministry of Finance we met Stuart Coffey of Adam Smith Institute International to discuss tax liability and later met with Kudadad Faqahi, Vice President of the Department of Foreign Trade in the Ministry of Commerce. He assured us that there should be no liability for paying tax on carpets produced for export. He also agreed to assist us by acting as our “representative” in Afghanistan, and through his wide ranging contacts he will source wool and other materials directly from the producers in rural areas.

We need an export licence and Mr Faqahi was able to advise us about that. We also met with Naseem Akbar of the Afghan Investment Support Association, where we registered our company last April.

At the World Bank we met Orjan Helland, a Norwegian working on risk insurance - who said he wished to visit the training school and acquire a carpet. We also met the Deputy Governor of a nearby Province, Maidan Wardak, and, in the guest house where we stayed, we met an Indian banker who was in the process of setting up an Afghan Bank. We met the new Head of Intelligence in Kabul, who had recently returned from a senior military post in Helmand, and the Head of Anti Corruption and Bribery, who also gave us a good contact in the International Carpet Manufacturers Association.

Driving round Kabul is not easy. Traffic flows chaotically and the state of many roads means drivers must weave in and out of potholes, while avoiding bicycles, pedestrians and even sometimes flocks of sheep being herded through the city. We had some heavy rain during our stay and the resulting mud and puddles created even more congestion. The main roads were well planned and laid out 40 years ago, straight and broad, but encroaching stalls, litter-filled storm drains and thousands of pedestrians make now for narrow lanes and not much room. When we visited the Ministry of Finance - carefully checking with responsible looking security officer nearby that we could park outside - we returned to a punctured front tyre and a smiling policeman with Kabul’s equivalent to the wheel clamp: a sharp knife. The cost of repair was $2, carried out by a young boy Abdullah had managed to find in a nearby shop.

Although so much remains to be done, there is a good deal of building and reconstruction taking place, and on my last day I visited Chicken Street - full of carpets, clothing, ornaments, antiques and guns - and the Kabul Shopping Centre, a fairly unobtrusive exterior masking an amazing inside, with attractive shops selling clothes and electrical goods, shiny escalators and glass panels.

We saw our good friend Simon Nicholson of Children in Crisis several times during our stay. Simon originally identified our partners ACD and has acted as an informal supporter and adviser to them and to us. His influence has been seminal and we are deeply grateful to him for his help. Simon finishes his time in Kabul in the early summer to return to the UK.

During our visit, 60 carpets were being transported from ACD to our office in Bethnal Green, East London, made by the trainees. They are high quality and very attractive and arrived just in time for a display in the House of Commons on 14 March, hosted by Tony Baldry MP, a Board member of Afghan Action and major supporter of our work. The sale went amazingly well - 27 carpets sold and a continuous stream of members of the Commons and the Lords buying carpets, asking questions and making orders when the carpet they had fancied had been sold to someone else! We were encouraged by the interest in and demand for the carpets - it bodes well for the future, as production by our colleagues in Kabul grows and we import carpets to the UK for sale.

Chris Beales, 16 March 2006