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Thanks very much for visiting my fundraising page.
I'm taking part in a bike ride to raise money for Beyond The 11th, a very fine organization co-founded by my friend Susan Retik. The specific project that will be funded by the money raised in connection with this event is described below using excerpts from the description at www.beyondthe11th.org. Briefly, Beyond The 11th is working with the non-profit, social business enterprise Arzu, Inc. (www.arzurugs.org) to build a women's community center in Bamyan, Afghanistan.
Please consider making a donation right now. You can donate even if the ride has already taken place. Thank you very much!
P.S.: I encourage you to watch "Beyond Belief," a documentary about Beyond The 11th and its founders. Sundance Channel, Saturday 9/12 at 1pm Eastern. Also available from Netflix.
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Dragon Valley Women's Community Center in Bamyan, Afghanistan.
This center will include laundry facilities, shower room with a latrine, tea room/lounge, classroom, community garden, and job training.
Any one of the above resources would better the lives of women, but combined, the center will truly be life changing for the women who become a part of the community.
Few places in the world are less hospitable to women than Dragon Valley. With a climate dominated by a frigid winter, and no central heat, plumbing or electricity in homes, women rarely if ever manage a reprieve from grueling household chores and childrearing. Work for income is rarely an option. Life expectancy: 46.
For a growing number of area women, however, the nonprofit organization Arzu has delivered opportunity by revitalizing a rug weaving industry. Many women had the applicable skills but no looms or quality wool. Arzu delivered both, cultivated a market for these beautiful rugs in the United States and beyond, and in addition to a generous wage that could be earned from home, provided desperately needed health care and education opportunities for rug weavers and their families. Now, Arzu will increase work opportunities and address quality of life issues for local women through construction of the Dragon Valley Community Center.
Beginning in November, rug weavers, many of them widows, will have access to a warm, safe facility where they can take classes, do laundry, bathe, use a flush toilet, collaborate with other weavers in a bright, spacious loom room or just sit for a moment in a chair and sip a hot cup of tea. For the women of Dragon Valley, these are unimaginable luxuries. The Community Center will give women who are among the poorest in the world a sense of value and will provide the chance to improve their weaving skills or train for additional life-changing job opportunities.
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