Weaving together lives of local, Afghan women

It is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. When that step is made with the intention to effectively break the cycle of global poverty, it is understandable that it can be a daunting one. For Connie K. Duckworth of Lake Forest, founder and president of Arzu Rugs, however, that step defined her.

Since 2004 Duckworth and Arzu, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, have been offering hope to the people and country of Afghanistan, and specifically its women, who previously had no legal right to work or earn an income, by providing them with significant compensation and access to education, health care and other basic human rights.

Employing more than 700 weavers from 238 households in nine rural villages, the core of Arzu's approach is its social contract with weaver families.

Through the contract, Arzu agrees to pay weavers market rate for their weaving, plus an additional 50 percent incentive bonus, in return for which the families must agree to send all of their children under the age of 15 to school full-time, as well as to have the women in the household attend literacy classes.

To date, Arzu provides access to literacy and fast-track classes for more than 300 women and girls, and raises private funds to grant $25,000 for school construction, desks and supplies.

Locally, Arzu is teaming up with Lake Forest Country Day School to take the school community on "Arzu's Journey of Hope" through the "Students4Students Program," an education project created to enrich students' global understanding.

"We are partnering and being supportive of Arzu's global mission," said head of school Michael Robinson, "and they in turn are providing us with a chance to take what sometimes are abstract concepts of global and cultural awareness and to make them more real-life."

Robinson believes that a true 21st-century competency for children is to have an appreciation and understanding of the complexity of life in other cultures.

The Students4StudentsProgram is designed to inspire age-appropriate community service among American students in the hope that this will build bridges of global understanding.

The program encompasses the full breadth of academic experience by engaging students in social studies, history, geography, government, religion and even math, by using algorithms to help develop and design rug patterns and symmetry.

For the past several weeks, Arzu has had its rugs on display throughout the Lake Forest Country Day School. Students will now be given the opportunity to design their own ornamental rug, with one selection to be chosen and actually made by the weavers in Afghanistan.

The Program has provided students from preschool through eighth grade with a face-to-face engagement with another culture and a global awareness experience, as well as an exposure to an art form.

"To have these art forms right on site at our school and for the children to be able learn about the lives of the craftspeople that go into the art forms is tremendous," Robinson said. "Children have an incredible capacity for empathy."

A big proponent of women's issues, Duckworth enlisted the aid of Joanne Herring, a longtime activist whose remarkable struggle to fight communism in Afghanistan will be depicted in the upcoming Julia Roberts film "Charlie Wilson's War."

"I feel that I am merely following in a path that Joanne was the groundbreaker on many years ago," Duckworth said, noting that the program has been an eye-opener for girls locally by creating an awareness of how other girls and women are treated around the world.

"I think we take so much of what we have -- just our basic human rights and things like clean drinking water -- for granted. This helps empower the girls here not only by thinking more broadly and globally about the world, but also to understand the value of all the rights they have day to day that they may not even initially recognize as rights."

To learn more about Arzu and view the collection, go to: www.arzurugs.org.