THE STORY OF SALEHA With eight children, Saleha, 34, and her husband were struggling to make ends meet with his meager daily wage income. “My husband worked as a farm hand and his income was simply not enough; we couldn’t even afford to buy milk,” said Saleha. To read full story, click here

Story of Mohammad Ali - A Microfinance Client Since returning from Iran after the Taliban regime collapsed, Mohammad Ali has been trying his hand at various businesses to support his family. As a migrant in Iran for 20 years, Ali gained skills and knowledge in various forms of trade and farming. After quitting his trade business last year, Mohammad Ali started a poultry and farming business on a piece of land he leased for AFN 170,000 per year in

Story of Sayed Mohammad Sayed Mohammad and his wife, a school-teacher, were making ends meet as a couple, living in the third istrict of Badakhshan province: Guzar Mohmmad Rahim-bay village. But as the family expanded to having three children, with two of them now of school-age, the household income became insufficient. Sayed had to think of a steady source of income that would cover his family’s daily consumption needs, plus some extra to save

Story of Zahra Khadem Hussain It was a memory from her childhood, a sweet moment of her as a young girl playing grown-up with her mother’s sewing machine, that gave Zahra the idea and the hope for a better future. Now a grown-up, Zahra, 35 years old, lives in the Hala Chapan village of Mazar-e-Sharif in Balkh with her husband and her own three children. Not too long ago, she and her family were in dire conditions and her sweet childhood memories

Rozma, 48 years old and a native of Maidan Wardak, has come a long way since her family moved to Kabul only to escape Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s. While living as a refugee in Iran without financial means, she decided to learn skills in stitching, tailoring, wool knitting, and embroidery.Years later after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Rozma and her family repatriated back to Kabul with no real livelihood prospects. She turned to