(link) The Bayat Foundation announced a 2010 Bayat Foundation Empowering Women Grant in the amount of US$10,000 to Women for Women International (WfWI) for their work supporting vulnerable women in Afghanistan with job skills training and small business support to improve their income earning potential.

These funds will provide women who have survived the effects of war in Afghanistan with the resources they need to move out of crisis and poverty to lives of stability and self-sufficiency.  These women include widows, victims of human trafficking, single mothers and refugees.  On average, 96% of the participants have no education, 99% have no income and 93% live without electricity.  WfWI’s resources include supplemental income generation activities, such as small poultry business development, and access to microcredit.

Diana Rowan Rockefeller, Co-Chair of the New York Leadership Circle of Women for Women International and U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council member said, “Women for Women International has made a significant difference in the lives of thousands of Afghan women.  It is a privilege to witness these inspired women engaging with their communities – skillfully, within the often restrictive cultural parameters they face – and yet, inspiring their communities to become whole again, daring to hope for, and to work for a better future.”

Bayat Foundation President and Executive Director Fatema Laya Bayat said, “We are humbled to provide the women ofAfghanistan with the encouragement and income generation support they desperately need through a 2010 Bayat Foundation Empowering Women Grant to Women for Women International.”