Karimabad:
In a sawmust-filled workshop located in the Karakoram Mountains, Mejs a team of female carpenters away by creating and threw an unlikely career for themselves in Pakistan.
Women make up just a fraction of Pakistan’s formal workforce. But in a collection of villages that sprinkled along the old Silk Road between China and Afghanistan, a group of women -led companies are taking expectations.
“We have 22 employees and have trained about 100 women,” said Bibi Amina, who launched her carpentry workshop in 2008 at the age of 30.
Hunza Valley’s population of about 50,000 is spread over mountains that abound with apricot, cherries, walnut and mulberry plantations.
Aga Khan opened a girls’ school in Hunza in 1946 and started an educational investment that pushed the valley’s literacy to 97 percent for both men and women. This rate far exceeds the country’s average of about 68 percent for men and 52.8 percent for women.
As a result, attitudes have changed and women like Amina take extended roles. “People thought women were there to wash up and wash,” Amina said of the generation before her.
Educated by the Aga Khan Foundation to help renovate the old Fort, Amina later used her ability to start her own business. Her carpenters are currently working on a commission from a luxury hotel.
Cafe owner Lal Shehzadi speared women’s restaurant entrepreneurship in Hunza. She opened her café at the top of a twisted High Street to complement her husband’s small army pension.
Sixteen years later, her simple setup overlooking the valley has become a popular tourist attraction at night. She serves visitors traditional kitchen, including yak meat, apricot oil and rich mountain cheese.
“At first I worked alone,” she said. “Now 11 people work here and most of them are women. And my kids also work here.”
After Shehzadi’s footsteps, Safina finished her job to start her own restaurant a decade ago. “No one would help me,” she said. Eventually, she convinced family members of selling two cows and a few goats for the money she needed to launch her business.
Now she earns the equivalent of about $ 170 a month, more than 15 times her previous income.
The socio-economic progress of women in Hunza compared to other rural areas in Pakistan has been driven by three factors, according to Sultan Madan, the head of the Karakoram area Development Organization and a local historian.
“The main reason is the very high literacy,” he told AFP, crediting largely the Aga Khan Foundation for financing training programs for women.
“Secondly, agriculture was the backbone of the economy in the region, but in Hunza, the land was lean, which was why women had to work in other sectors.”
