A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Sarah Schores and Afghan Women’s Network (AWN): Voting Project

Sarah Schores is currently studying for a Master of Science at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with a concentration in Foreign Policy and Russian/Central Asian studies. She graduated from Tufts University in 2000 where she majored in International Relations and Russian and Eastern European Studies. Prior to Georgetown she taught English at a small nongovernmental organization in Vladimir, Russia.

As part AP’s 2004 Summer Internship Program, Sarah Schores, a graduate student at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, worked with the Afghan Women’s Network, one of the foremost groups lobbying for the rights of Afghan women.

AWN works to secure voting rights for women in Afghanistan, and register women to vote before the upcoming election.

Sarah was one of two interns who worked with AWN, and focused her internship on helping them to register women voters in advance of the September elections, which proved critical in sustaining Afghanistan’s progress towards democracy. She worked in AWN’s office in Kabul, under the direction of Afifa Aziz, the Executive-Director.

During the summer, Sarah posted reports in the form of web logs (blogs). The blogs offer a unique insight into the day-to-day operations of a grassroots organization, and into Sarah’s own personal experience as an intern.

The AWN comprises 65 member organizations and 3,000 individual members in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It uses its impressive grassroots membership to launch several campaigns that are aimed at increasing the involvement of women in the political process. 

In 2003, it organized an extensive series of village consultations with its members that were aimed at generating support for the incorporation of women’s rights into the new Afghan Constitution. This proved to be successful: the constitution now includes a number of protections that did not previously exist, and women are now represented in the Loya Jirga (assembly), which adopted the constitution in December.

The AWN’s latest, and most ambitious, campaign was to register women voters in advance of the elections that were held in September 2004. The UN originally had a goal of registering 10 million Afghans, out of a total population of 27 million.  However, in a March 29 press release AWN said that the process had slowed because women in particular faced several obstacles. These included the lack of adequate information about the process, poor security, as well as the lack of transportation. Additionally, many women needed permission from a close male relative in order to register.

In order to address this problem, it was urged that more mobile registration teams be sent into remote areas "where women are waiting eagerly" to register. Therefore, AWN began its own registration drive.  1,300 women from Kabul were registered between March 8 and March 10 alone. 

The Advocacy Project has established a productive partnership with AWN. In 2003, AP sent an information consultant, Mary Moore, to help AWN develop a communications strategy. Mary’s reports are posted on AP’s website, and have attracted the attention of two donors. One gave the AWN $39,000 for a schools project. Another, the firm Working Assets, gave $25,000 to the AWN’s registration program.

• Sarah Schores' blog