In an initiative for women's education in the Middle East, students and guests gathered in the Shapiro Campus Center on Saturday for a morning of hands-on activism. Everyone was hunched over, squinting a little, as they embroidered handprints onto white canvas bags. The silence was occasionally broken by discussions of education in war torn regions. We were there as part of 'Deis Impact's interactive event, "One to One: Lending A Hand to Women in Afghanistan." "One to One" is a collaboration between Barakat, Inc., a nonprofit group located in Cambridge with the goal of improving education in northern Pakistan and rural Afghanistan, and Women's Studies Research Center scholar Linda Bond.

Bond started by giving a bit of background on the issues facing women and girls in Afghanistan. She explained that through learning more about the problems, she realized that "humanity [is] in conflict" and that her background in art could help bring concern for that conflict to American audiences. That was how the idea of One to One was born. Bond saw the symbol of hands and the art of embroidery as a connecting force between cultures around the world. She saw "the hand as a powerful image" and used that as her inspiration to embroider the outlines of hands onto simple drawstring bags.

Angha Sirpurkar-Childress, the executive director at Barakat, spoke after Bond. Barakat currently operates five schools, three in northern Pakistan for refugees and two in Afghanistan, as well as many literacy centers for women and girls in remote parts of Afghanistan. Sirpurkar-Childress explained that, unlike other non-governmental organizations in the region, Barakat tries to work at a community level with local leaders in the hopes of "empowering the most vulnerable" through education. Her hopes are that Bond's project will raise awareness at both Brandeis as well as in the United States about education and Barakat.

Following Sirpurkar-Childress' presentation, the attendees received a blank white bag and a physical demonstration of three different embroidery stitches, running stitch, back stitch and loop stitch. From there, participants traced their hands, some with fingers splayed, some in fists. Some people just did a simple outline in a single muted color, while other people covered every inch of the bag with flowers, spirals or geometric patterns. The bags we decorated were not the only bags in the room. Bond also had bags made from women and girls in Aghanistan with her. The Afghani bags were richly decorated with intricate stitching and looked flawless.

Bond plans to use the bags both from the U.S. and from Afghanistan to create an instillation piece. Ideally, she explained, she would like to host workshops where participants would pay a low price to embroider the bags. The money raised from the workshops and the exhibition would go to Barakat, which would in turn send the money to the various schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

When asked what she would do with the bags after the exhibitions and instillation, Bond did admit that she wasn't entirely sure, but she was thinking of digitally uploading the designs and then reprinting them as a way to keep raising money for Barakat. "One to One: Lending A Hand to Women in Afghanistan" served as an interactive event that also raised questions of social justice and the need for women's education.

Although the event was mostly focused on the physical act of decorating bags, there was also some discussion about how audience members felt about different issues and why they were lending a hand to women around the world.
*