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stitching clothes at home for their families,
and keeping them warm with their handmade duvets during the brutal winter.
“We cannot thank CAI enough for eradicating poverty that the whole village was
trapped in,” said Jehan. “Education, integrity,
and hard work are the three things that can
change a woman’s life.”
BEAUTY IN
UNEXPECTED PLACES
I
opened the door to one of the rooms
in the second vocational training center
and found myself in a small beauty salon.
Basic, with only a mirror, one chair, and a
long table covered in beauty products bought
in Gilgit, the space was still one where women would want to spend time gossiping and
being pampered.
Adorning the walls were two bridal outfits — one red and one gold — displayed for
the purpose of renting. Pictures of elaborate
henna patterns were pasted on the walls. For
weddings or special occasions, women often will stain their skin — typically hands,
arms, and feet — with the dye. Squeezed out
of bags or little tubes like cake frosting, the
brownish plant purée is then left to dry on
the skin. The longer it is left on the darker the
design.
A price list tacked to the wall revealed
an impressive range of services including
pedicures, facials, makeup application, and
haircuts.
The salon belongs to Rasheela, a vocational center trainee who had taken beautician
courses in the provincial capital of Gilgit,
and was renting the space for her business.
She is a 22-year-old high school graduate
who chose to open the first-ever salon in
her village. Since her father’s death, she has
been helping support her family with what
little money she brought in from the salon.
She said she mostly was satisfied with what
she made during the wedding season, which
usually picks up right after the summer harvest. Without this extra income, her brother
would have been the sole breadwinner for a
family of seven.
Rasheela received her training through
an apprenticeship at a beauty salon in the
provincial capital, Gilgit. She lived there for
a year, taking courses and learning on the
42 | JOURNEY OF HOPE
job. When she returned home, finding a
safe, public space for her trade wasn’t easy.
However, the vocational center opened, and
suddenly she had an ideal location.
I had the pleasure of visiting only two of 21
such vocational centers supported by CAI in
the districts of Ghizar and Hunza.
The centers serve as public spaces for families and women to meet. They are safe havens
where advice is sought and given, gossip exchanged, and many happy and productive
hours are spent. They add value to hundreds
of lives.
It is in these spaces that women emulate
progressive changes they see in other women’s lives, such as sending girls to school
and practicing better hygiene. According to
rough estimates from project managers, barely five percent of people over age 40 in these
villages are literate, compared to a 95 percent
literacy rates for members under the age of
21. Communities today are cognizant of the
value of education and don’t want poverty
to hold them back. The winds of change are
sweeping these remote communities.
that creaked with the weight of the vehicle
and swayed with the wind. On this trip, we
were to visit five schools supported at various levels by CAI: all located off the beaten
track.
In the village of Chator Khand, we drove
past a construction site of a government
school that had started in 2009, the same
time that the first CAI school we were visiting was built. While the CAI school was fully
functional, the government school construction was still incomplete. It was a reminder
to me of just how difficult it can be to build
in these remote areas, with weather, funding,
and labor all factors that can delay even the
best of projects.
The ethnic diversity of this federally-administrated area is striking. Four main languages are spoken, none of which have a
script. The official language is Urdu, which
can be seen in the graffiti written on the
boulders and rocks by the road. The language changes from one village to the next
and there are numerous multi-ethnic villages
as well.
CAI BEGINS WHERE THE
ROAD ENDS
GOING TO SCHOOL IN
HEART’S LOVE VALLEY
As our jeep moved on shifting dirt tracks
up the mountainside, the gravel and stones
beneath gave way. Where bridges disappeared, we drove over rocky streambeds
to reach the villages where CAI had set up
schools.
We drove over old suspension bridges
The collection of our identification cards
at an army checkpost before the village of
Tashnaluk was a reminder of our close proximity to the Afghan border. We were allowed
to continue on our way without any trouble.
Tashnaluk is situated in a beautiful valley.
However, the romantic name of the valley,
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