“Our dream has come true! We have started receiving fruits of our efforts that we made for a decent living. With all the household chores to take care of, it is not easy to take out time and energy for making handicrafts. However, receiving a reasonable price for our products is a great relief,” said Fatima Bibi, after a major client placed a sizeable order for purchasing her products.
Fatima Bibi is a resident of Nushki and is one among dozens of other women who put their embroidery and handicraft at display at Serena Hotel during a ceremony organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as part of its project on empowering women in Balochistan through Agri entrepreneurship.
The Serena Hotel Management expressed their interest in purchasing Balochistan’s traditional handicrafts and 150 pieces of embroidery to decorate hotel rooms.
Women within the tribal culture of Balochistan, do not enjoy social safety nets. Literacy rates in rural areas of Balochistan are far from where they should be. It is estimated that only two percent of the rural women are literate. Illiteracy, poverty, dearth of access to services, jobs and markets have increased Baloch women’s woes.
With very limited social and economic opportunities available, women in rural Balochistan are entirely dependent on their husbands and male family members. Often they are left with insufficient means of income.
“When it comes to women’s participation in economic activities, they fulfil a key role in agriculture and livestock production in Balochistan, but despite their active role, they continue to receive inadequate remuneration.” said FAO Balochistan Chief Technical Advisor, Marcel Stallen. He added that “women mostly do not receive any share in the income from crops, livestock or other agri products, in spite of their hard work”.
“With the support of the Australian Government, FAO in collaboration with the Government of Balochistan, has launched a two projects in the province: the Australia Balochistan Agri Business Program and Empowering women in Balochistan through agri entrepreneurship. The latter project aims to empower women from Nushki, Chagai and Quetta districts through female enterprise development in the agriculture sector. Naturally, agriculture, livestock, handicrafts and embroidery, provide the most suitable opportunities for women in Balochistan to utilize their potential to earn income “.
Asima Gulistan, the FAO team leader on women economic empowerment, states that “the objective is to develop and strengthen profitable “Agri enterprises”, owned by women and thus enabling women to increase income, reduce their daily workload and to make investment decisions independently to improve their living conditions. Activities most suitable for women have been selected and are supported by the project. These include apricot processing, vegetable seedling production, poultry raising, sheep fattening and wool processing“

“After successfully mobilizing women in far flung bordering areas, we are now increasingly focusing on empowering women economically,” Ahmed Jan Essa, (Deputy Program Manager) maintained, adding that for example “the wool value chain has ample opportunities for rural women to earn their own income. They can indulge in a range of activities from wool shearing, washing, grading, spinning to carpet weaving and of course embroidery and handicrafts production.
Under the Australian Government funded economic empowerment project, women have been trained to prepare the sheep for shearing and to hand wash the sheared fleeces and grade, sort, spin and dye the wool. Once wool has undergone basic processing, it can be spun into yarn. The yarn can then be dyed and used in carpet making which is also mostly done by women. “To increase the yield, protect fiber length and increasing the efficiency of women engaged in wool addition activities, wool spinning wheels have been introduced to women of rural areas, Ahmed noted.
“I have been provided with a solar operated wool spinning wheel which has greatly increased the efficiency of my work, without dependency on electricity” mother of four children, 50-years-old Bano Bibi tells her story. “Now I can spin 1 kg wool in one hour as compared to the traditional methods only 250 gram per hour. I can now easily earn Rs.7,000 per month and help my family to buy food, clothes and medicines.
The President of the Balochistan Women Business Association, Sana Durani, when asked to comment on the FAO women empowerment and entrepreneurship initiative stated: “I have 5000 registered women in the Balochistan Women Business Association but only 50 are doing business in embroidery jewellery etc. adding that “due to lack of resources and financial constraints, we could not ensure outreach to the women of rural areas of Balochistan. With the support of the Australian Government and FAO we would be able to reach many more women in the districts to become entrepreneurs and start their own agri businesses”. She added that “in an environment where tribal restrictions confine women to their houses and women having insufficient means of income, the Government should support the private sector and help rural women to increase their income from agriculture and livestock, thus also improving food security.