Sewing machines provide tremendous economic opportunity for women in conflict zones

Our Marines are trying to help women in southern Afghanistan and Spirit of America wants your support for a new project that will supply sewing machines to women throughout the District of Nawa in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. You can learn more about the project and how to support it with 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines here. This project in Nawa is particularly noteworthy given the attention Nawa and its neighboring Helmand Province population centers of Marja and Garmsir have received in the press recently.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, an associate editor at the Washington Post who heads up the newspaper's Afghanistan war coverage and has made five visits in the last year to the region, wrote an essay in the paper's Sunday edition comparing the progress that has been made in Nawa versus the challenges that still lie ahead for Marja, a community still mired in a tough Taliban insurgency. While Nawa might serve as an example of how the Marines executed an effective counterinsurgency campaign, Marja--due to its isolated geographic location surrounded by canals and the Helmand Valley desert plains--provided the Taliban insurgency one last refuge in the province as US Marines surged into the district earlier this year. In that sense, Marja is perhaps the Taliban's last stand in Helmand. Chandrasekaran explains further:

"Marja may not be representative in terms of geography or drugs or bomb factories, but it may be closer to the norm in one key respect: The Taliban is contesting it.

"In that sense, the insurgents themselves possess the power to give us more Nawas. That may not mean Marja is a lost cause, but it does mean it will take much longer to achieve similar results.

"Consider Garmsir, the district south of Nawa. It, too, was infested with insurgents, some of whom chose to stay and fight. The Marines arrived there in the summer of 2008 to begin counterinsurgency operations, and it was not until earlier this year--about 18 months later--that the area was deemed by Marine commanders to have been cleared of the Taliban. 'Garmsir is a better model for what will happen in Marja,' the senior Marine officer said. 'Nawa is the gold standard, not the example.'"

The bottom line for us at Spirit of America is that the way ahead in Afghanistan will take time to yield results and our Marines in Helmand Province and our Soldiers throughout the rest of Afghanistan still have a long, hard road ahead. But, as their new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has said, "Hard is not hopeless."

Items like sewing machines provide an incredible opportunity for the women of Afghanistan to not only create and sell tailored goods on the local market but have a real stake in theirs and their country's future. Your support for Marine units like 3/3 in Nawa, 3/1 in Garmsir, and 2/6, who just arrived in southern Marja, has and will continue to be crucial in helping Marines help their Afghan civil and security partners not only counter Taliban influence but empower and assist Afghan women.