Solar Powered Carts for Women

Farhad is a Social Entrepreneur, European Commission’s Young Leader, Asia Foundation’s Development Fellow and One Young World Ambassador. Defying threats, Farhad has implemented the most audacious and impactful projects in Afghanistan. Last year He Launched Solar-Powered Food carts for Afghan women. Involving women for the first time in male-dominated occupations eliminated barriers that deprive millions of Afghan women from economic opportunities. When once no woman dared to become cart vendor, because of stigma attached to working women in Afghanistan, Farhad has encouraged thousands of women to do businesses and jobs fearlessly. During pandemic, Farhad converted the solar powered food carts into disinfectant units to provide free sanitation/disinfection services to half a million people. The initiative has been featured by BBC, VOA, DW, The Guardian, Aljazeera, Reuters, Lavanguardia and many Local channels. In 2021, Farhad is making 1100 solar powered carts which will help 2200 impoverished women become successful social entrepreneurs. 

The Project mainly addresses the Social Exclusion of women and cultural barriers, which drag millions of women in the world's male-dominated and most conservative countries into the never ending waves of poverty. Considering the massive cuts in the foreign aid, our initiative is a sustainable model to address Hunger, weak sanitation systems and lack of climate action in the world's most unstable regions.By involving women into a male-dominated business, such as street food vending,in an extremely conservative society, we created friction at first and eventually broke the cultural barriers that hindered women from actively participating in socio-economic activities for decades.Having achieved great from the social business, our initiative has the potential to emancipate millions of women from across the world who confront similar situation as that of Afghan women. Also, our initiative can feed the hungry, provide free hands washing facility to poor and educate millions on climate change.  

In Afghanistan and in some other parts of the world, women are stigmatized, harassed and threatened if they endeavor to do any outside job or business which requires them to interact with strange men.  The patriarchal culture marginalizes women and limit their chances of Social mobility and makes them the biggest victim of poverty. Also, such actions make women more susceptible  to domestic violence, because seeing themselves excluded from economic opportunities leave them no choice but to depend on men’s income and to endure  brutalities. 

According to Reuters, Afghanistan is the second most dangerous country for women to live in. Because of less interaction between men and women a social stigma attached to working women is deeply rooted in our society. Therefore, many families refrain their daughters and sisters from doing any outside job or business. Not only such cultural barrier put millions of women into poverty, it also deprives a big fraction of women from their very basic human rights to education, health and freedom.

The main objective of the project is to eradicate the cultural barriers that deprive women from economic opportunities by going against the grain and giving a message to the society that there is nothing wrong for a woman to be a cart vendor or to do any job or business which is typically considered for men. involving women into male-dominated businesses can lay a strong foundation for sustainable social change in highly patriarchal societies.

 The Solar Powered carts will be used by women from different conservative societies for various business purposes. To grow harmony and to avoid any type of harassment or negative reaction in local communities, the women cart vendors would distribute free products for people in need. in our case, our cart vendors feed impoverished people everyday. .Also, our carts provide free hands washing facility for people to wash their hands regularly. This helps people to keep safe from the virus. Finally, through  specially designed food wrappers we educate people on climate change and remind them regularly to take climate action immediately. 

Seeing their fellow Afghan women riding carts in the streets neglecting the odds of patriarchal culture have encouraged thousands of Afghan women to do business fearlessly.

When we wanted to start the project we couldn’t find any woman willing to become the project beneficiary. Women anticipated a negative reaction from the society and their families, if they were to become cart vendors. So, it took us months to convince only Five women for the job. When we finally started the project, our beneficiaries were threatened and harassed by some conservative people. They started to call this initiative to be in contradiction with the Afghan culture and Islam. And some of our beneficiaries quit early, reporting that some kids were told to throw stones at them. Unfortunately, I saw my mission of leading change and empowering women through social entrepreneurship unachievable. Unless, I started campaigning in the local communities with the help of Religious Scholars, Youth and local leaders to curb people’s disturbing behavior towards our beneficiaries. After leading the initiative tenaciously for almost six months , finally made us to witness change miraculously. The friction yielded positive results! And we observed that people started buying food from the carts by neglecting the gender bias. When once no women dared to become a cart vendor, we have now received 1500 women applicants for the job 

There are many inhumane practices of a society and eliminating them need a shift in people's attitudes and behavior. In my community Religion is so mixed up with culture which is surrounded by ideas of Male Dominance and women-related stereotypes such as women is incapable of doing things which men can. Enabling women to ride a cart and to do business broke the decades-long stereotypes about Afghan women and changed the beliefs and attitude of people towards women. People now realized that women can be a strong force to boost local economy and therefore should be encouraged to do business 

You can watch an interesting story of how I became a social entrepreneur working for Afghan women on this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq8dMw9uHb8&feature=youtu.be

We started our social change initiative from traditional human pulled food carts. They were heavy to be moved by a woman alone, and our beneficiaries would pay male workers for moving their food carts from their kitchens to the place of food distribution. This would cost them a lot. So, after a thorough research we found that food carts can be moved by the help of solar energy which is found abundant in Afghanistan. Therefore, we chose solar energy as reliable and environmental friendly method of transporting the food carts from one place to another without requiring women to bear extra costs for moving the carts.  In addition, the Zero-Carbon food carts can help women food vendors to serve street food at night without requiring them to light up the cart with power generators which intakes fossil fuel. Burning fossil fuel is not only detrimental to Environment but to human health as well. If the local vendors keep  serving street food by powering cart with power generators by burning the fossil fuel they may intake Harmful Gasses 

I am Passionate about my project because with very less investment it has impacted the lives of millions of Afghan women and has the potential to impact the lives of Millions of women who endure hardships in strong patriarchal societies across the world. Seeing the potential of social business can have in fragile countries like Afghanistan inspires me to work harder and  to experiment with more social business ideas. Maybe i find another big social business idea as such that of Muhammad Yunus from Bangladesh which would have the potential to alleviate the miseries of Millions of People from across the world. 

in addition, through Solar Powered Food carts  i want to achieve other Sustainable development goals as well. For example, I want to eradicate poverty and hunger from Afghanistan because 54% of population lives below the poverty line and a big population is exposed to hunger and malnutrition. Also, Through specially designed food wrappers containing local messages about climate change I will remind those who keep burning coal and other detrimental things such as plastic to warm up their homes in winter. This becomes vital in a country where More People die of Air Pollution than terrorism. 

Planning strategically, thinking pragmatically and keeping hawk-like eyes on my vision are my strengths which have succeeded me at leading social change and empowering people in the world’s most unfavorable place. To attain my socio-economic development goals in Afghanistan, I planned starting a business with a purpose to finance my social change initiatives. To raise capital for a business, I started working for different organizations. Having made little money helped me to launch a business and that business helped me to finance my non-profit activities. 

During my development Fellowship Program by the Asia Foundation in Asia and in the US, my leadership program at the European Commission's HQ in Brussels, and my visit to One Young World in London, and My leaders connect program at the Asia Society California, I have made a global network of Young Change Makers, Development Practitioners, Politicians, Fundraisers, experts and social entrepreneurs. This can help me to upscale my social business in other parts of the world. Thus growing my social impact globally. 

Living in a country where social change makers can be targeted by terrorists (ISIS and Taliban) anytime, I still try to surround myself with positive energy every morning i go to my office. Most recently, my friend, a human rights activist, was killed in a bomb blast. Such violent events don't refrain me from my noble work which is to empower the weakest in our society (The Women). 

I remember a day when i solved the problems faced by our beneficiaries at work. When some of our women vendors placed their carts in some highly conservative communities, the leaders of those communities responded harshly and wanted to ban the women from placing their carts there. In order to grow local support for the project I took the help of religious scholars. I asked the Religious leaders to present me with one verse of Holy Quran or Prophetic Sayings that propagates women can't do any business or job. By not finding any  the Scholars told the leaders that Islam doesn't forbid women from doing business- in fact the Prophet Muhammad's Wife was a well known business woman. Solving the problem helped our beneficiaries to resume their operations in those communities.

I have been able to use Transformational leadership methods to build a collective vision of success for my team. 

During the implementation of our Social Businesses,  I didn’t want to lose my team’s motivation by saying “this is what you have to do” but rather I wanted to direct them by saying “ this is our end goal, so how would you go about it ? Their excitement for using their own leadership would bring up  innovative and creative ideas on achieving the desired outcomes effectively and efficiently .

I also lead my team by setting up clear examples of my commitment towards social change. When it comes to work, I go to the most unstable regions of Afghanistan to reach to more underprivileged communities  neglecting the fear from insurgents and terrorists.  I give a message to my team that we all have to stay committed towards this noble cause despite the hardships we confront in Afghanistan.  We believe that enduring difficulties now will yield fruitful results for Afghan women in future. That is how true leaders behave, they sacrifice their present for a better future of their followers.

The most innovative part of our initiative for which we were Applauded by the First Lady of Afghanistan, UNDP, Afghanistan National Environmental Protection Agency, the Administrative Office of the President,  was converting the Food Carts into Disinfectant Carts immediately to provide free Hands Washing Facility and Disinfection services for the people in need in a cost effective manner.  Most importantly, during our daily operations we educate people on Social Distancing rules by training them on how to stand in circles while waiting in line for their turn to come to wash their hands

Last month through our 40 solar powered disinfectant and sanitation carts we provided free hands washing facility to almost 450,000 people in need, and disinfected 80,000 public places including (shops, parks, and Bus Stops) , and as part of the project deliverable we produced 72000 homemade masks and distributed among impoverished people. 

We are an organization led by a vibrant team who knows how to quickly evolve to Changing conditions to serve our beneficiaries to the best. Our beneficiaries who used to earn good income while they were selling street food before the COVID19 Pandemic, didn’t have any  source to win bread for their starving kids during lock down. In such turbulent times we designed a project which can employ back our 80 beneficiaries coming from impoverished communities to help us combat the COVID19 pandemic in Kabul city. We have designed carts that can spray disinfecting liquid in Places susceptible to the growth of Corona Virus and because people in many communities can’t buy sanitizing products and can’t wash their hands regularly. What we provide is a mobile hands washing facility so that people regularly wash their hands for free. Due to not having any transportation cost, because our solar powered carts can run 95 Kilo Meters on 6 hours sunlight perfect for Afghanistan weather, we won two big contracts from the National Procurement Authority (NPA) to provide free sanitation and disinfection services in Presidential Palace and in Kabul City. The Grants helped us to employ back our 80 beneficiaries during strict lockdown. Also, we have found other donors who will continue supporting this project until the pandemic is over. As soon as the pandemic is over, we will convert our Solar Powered Disinfectant and Sanitation carts back to Food Carts and will continue serving people with fresh and healthy food.

We are currently serving 80 women and next year with the government's support we will expand the number of our Carts to 1100 which will help us turn 2200 impoverished women into successful entrepreneurs and in 5 years are we are expecting to increase the number of solar powered women run to 5000 reaching direct beneficiaries to 10,000 

Next year we will produce 1100 Solar Powered Carts for Afghan women providing business incubation opportunity for 2200 Afghan women. and in next five years we will increase the number of carts to 5000 turning 10000 impoverished into a network of social entrepreneurs. Also, we would expand our operations into neighboring countries as well. 

The Biggest Barrier we Afghans face is to maintain the security of our staff. Even though our office is located in a highly secure area, still we can be targeted by terrorists.

Apart from that we don't currently have a partner organization based in US to help us apply for the Development Projects announced by USAID and other international organizations. This lags us behind from reaching to many funding opportunities.  

Last week, we were shortlisted for a small grant however because of not finding any fiscal sponsor in the US we couldn't qualify for the grant. 

During our next projects, we will increase security budget for our office and for our staff. 

We are looking to find partners  in the US would help us qualify for many international funding opportunities

We have partnered with The Office of the President, National Procurement Authority, National environmental Protection Agency, The Asia Foundation , One Young World, and UNDP