Archive for November, 2009

Environmental engineer Muna Hindiyeh, Ph.D., has plans for a company that will turn food waste into irrigation water. “It will help in unconventional ways to produce new resources of water that will help keep landscaping green,” says Hindiyeh, a 2009 graduate of SEEDS, a women’s entrepreneurship program that Thunderbird runs in partnership with Jordan’s Business Development Center. Funding comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The program provides two weeks of intensive business education for Jordanian women at Thunderbird in Glendale, Arizona. Through the program, Hindeyeh also will receive two years of business mentorship from Laura Burgis, an environmental engineer with Burgis Envirolutions in Arizona. Watch the video above to learn more about Abu Duqer’s story.

Interior designer and jeweler Rasha Halawani needed to be her own boss, so she quit her job one day and started her own company. ”I just couldn’t be in the office anymore around people telling me what to do and what not to do,” Halawani says. “I had so much to give, and I couldn’t give it because of that.” Today she runs an interior design business and designs jewelery, and she also has plans to publish her own magazine and start a furniture line. Halawani learned strategies to grow these businesses during SEEDS, a women’s entrepreneurship program that Thunderbird runs in partnership with Jordan’s Business Development Center. Funding comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The program provides two weeks of intensive business education for Jordanian women at Thunderbird in Glendale, Arizona. Through the program, Halawani also will receive two years of business mentorship from interior designer Janelle Schick with Schick Design Group in Arizona. Watch the video above to learn more about Badran’s story.

Madaba, an ancient Jordanian city southwest of Amman, is famous for its Byzantine and Umayyad mosaics. Artist Khloud Abu Duqer shares these mosaics with the world through a small company she runs in the city. She learned strategies to grow her business during SEEDS, a women’s entrepreneurship program that Thunderbird runs in partnership with Jordan’s Business Development Center. Funding comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The program provides two weeks of intensive business education for Jordanian women at Thunderbird in Glendale, Arizona. Through the program, Abu Duqer also will receive two years of business mentorship from Jane Ginn, a Web marketer with Sedona Cyber Link in Sedona, Arizona. Watch the video above to learn more about Abu Duqer’s story.

Architect Rana Badran wants families in Jordan to have clean air, and she plans to do her part by incorporating green building practices into the projects she manages.  “In order to have healthy people and clean air, we need to do the green building,” says Badran, a 2009 graduate of SEEDS, a women’s entrepreneurship program that Thunderbird runs in partnership with Jordan’s Business Development Center. Funding comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The program provides two weeks of intensive business education for Jordanian women at Thunderbird in Glendale, Arizona. Through the program, Badran also will receive two years of business mentorship from architect Leslie Lindo, a green builder with Sonoran SBAP in Arizona. Watch the video above to learn more about Badran’s story.

Jordanian businesswoman Rania Al-Saber runs a small management consulting and training services company in Jordan and is ready to grow. So she enrolled in SEEDS, a women’s entrepreneurship program that Thunderbird runs in partnership with the Business Development Center in Jordan. Funding comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The program provides two weeks of intensive business education for Jordanian women at Thunderbird in Glendale, Arizona. Through the program, Al-Saber also will receive two years of business mentorship from 1981 Thunderbird graduate Virginia Frazier, who works at Deva Industries in Florida. Watch the video above to learn more.

During the years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Malalay Jaward clung to a dangerous secret. Every day she covered herself in a full burqa and traveled to a forbidden job with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, where she provided mental support for women in rural areas. Many women she encountered were locked in their homes without utilities and other essentials.

The Taliban would not tolerate such a mission, so Jaward told few people about her affiliation with the international organization. Instead of money, she was paid in wheat.

When she ventured outside, she kept a low profile and traveled as much as possible with her husband or other trusted men. If a Taliban agent spotted her on the streets alone, the penalty could be abduction, rape and even death.

One of the biggest risks Jaward took for the United Nations was traveling to Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban regime. She knew she couldn’t go alone, so her husband decided to escort her. This meant leaving their 13-year-old daughter behind to care for four younger children.
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Andeisha Farid is a 10,000 Women graduate from the business women’s training program in Afghanistan run by Dr. Bullough of the Walker Center for Global Entrepreneurship .  Brian Williams with NBC Nightly News recently visited Andeisha’s orphanage for a highlight peice on heros in a country of war.  NBC aired the segment on Friday, October 30th asking for donations from generous American viewers.  A second segment aired the following Monday, November 2nd with news that donations of over $50,000 had come in on Friday night alone and actually crashed the website for a short time.  We are very proud of Andeisha, as she is a great example of the work we are trying to do for women business leaders in Afghanistan.  See the video here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#33557068

Women had few career options in the ancient Afghan city where Masooma Habibi labored in her youth as a carpet weaver. So she pressed forward, working 12 hours a day for up to three years to finish one carpet. Her hands cracked and bled on a daily basis from the job, but she could not stop because she needed the money to survive and take care of her family.
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