This summer, as a 2007 Peace Fellow, I will work for the Advocacy Project, a Washington, DC-based NGO, but with the Afghan Women’s Network’s (AWN) office in Kabul. The Advocacy Project (AP) provides focused support for community-based advocates promoting peace and human rights by helping their partners use and disseminate information more effectively.

Founded in 1995 as a coordination body, AWN’s foci are advocacy, networking and capacity building. Between 2003 and 2004, AWN’s campaigns played a central role in assuring women’s rights have a place in the new Afghan constitution and mobilizing women to vote in the 2003 elections. The “progress” that AWN and other organizations and women fighting for Afghan women’s empowerment have been simple or linear. Progressive women are simultaneously a symbol of change and a target. This blog is in part a testimony of the accomplishments, obstacles and risks that these women and their network negotiate through on a daily basis. Since the Constitution of Afghanistan was approved more than 3 years ago, the fight for improved conditions for women in Afghanistan if far from over.

Advocacy is the act of arguing on behalf of a particular idea, issue or person. In my capacity as one of AP’s Peace Fellows, I will work to increase AWN’s capacity to produce and disseminate information about their work and their issues while at the same time supporting their advocacy and service programs in the field. With AP’s strategic guidance, I will not only be advocating on behalf of AWN, but advocating for an idea – women’s rights – that I care about, while keeping the particularities of context in focus, and diving into a personal and professional challenge, which will lead to personal and professional growth.