In her shop, Kazemi sells items for women, including clothing, jewelry and hygienic products. To purchase inventory for her shop, she must hire a driver and travel to Kabul, which is difficult and expensive. Many women cannot even leave their homes without permission from their husbands, Dennemeyer said.


Fatima

This article was written by Kyara Lomer, editor of the Deerfield Forum and Pompano Forum

In a country where women have limited rights and struggle for independence, help is just a bracelet away.

South Floridians soon will have the opportunity to help one of these women from Afghanistan venture into entrepreneurship by participating in jewelry-making events at Bead & Art in Lighthouse Point. Fatima Kazemi, 29, lives in the province of Bamyan, a nine-hour car ride from Kabul.

With the traditional role of women in Afghanistan, illiteracy, unpaved roads and long drives to and from town working against her, Kazemi first petitioned Bamyan's former male governor to open her shop and was denied. When Bamyan got a new female governor, Habiba Sorabi, Kazemi petitioned again, but this time she was not turned down. She is the first and only woman to win the right to open a shop in the Bazar-e-Ghul market in Bamyan.

Kazemi first received assistance from the United States when she was selected to attend Thunderbird Project Artemis in Glendale, Ariz. The two-week program teaches female entrepreneurs in Afghanistan how to write business plans and the basics of marketing and finance management. Each woman also is assigned a Thunderbird graduate as a mentor. Kazemi's mentor, Suzanne Dennemeyer, graduated with a master's degree in business administration from Thunderbird, and lives in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Searching for ways to help give Kazemi a head start, Dennemeyer sought out friends and relatives in other states and countries, including Pennsylvania, Arizona, England and Florida, to host jewelry-making events and donate the pieces to Kazemi's shop.

In her shop, Kazemi sells items for women, including clothing, jewelry and hygienic products. To purchase inventory for her shop, she must hire a driver and travel to Kabul, which is difficult and expensive. Many women cannot even leave their homes without permission from their husbands, Dennemeyer said.

Relatives in Lighthouse Point responded and brought the idea to Fin McNiel, owner of Bead & Art in Lighthouse Point. McNiel will be sponsoring two jewelry-making events open to anyone who wants to make or donate a piece of jewelry or drop off other hand-crafted items.

McNiel will provide some beads and materials for the workshops. "The idea is pretty phenomenal," McNiel said. "I admire [Kazemi]'s courage. Anything I can do to further her cause." Dennemeyer said her goal is to collect 100 pieces of jewelry to give Kazemi as bonus inventory for her shop. "We are doing this because we want to give her an inventory boost. She can sell inventory she doesn't have to pay for," Dennemeyer said.

Kazemi must compete in a market in which 95 percent of her competitors are men, who have better relationships with manufacturers and are better capitalized, Dennemeyer said.

Kazemi told Dennemeyer that her plan for overcoming this disadvantage is that she knows what women want and has a better understanding of anticipating their needs, which helps her to make better buying decisions.

Dennemeyer said women in Afghanistan love jewelry, especially pieces made in the United States. "It's really the international language," she said. At the workshops, participants can include some information about themselves to send along with their pieces of jewelry to make the items more personal.

"There are people in the U.S. who actually care about what's going on," McNiel said.

Dennemeyer said Kazemi rents electricity from a neighbor for a few hours each night, and considering the exchange rate, if she can sell one piece of jewelry for $6, she can heat her home for one month.

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