Press Releases

Appeal for Afghan Women’s Rights Echoes Democratic Roots

March 3, 2002

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT
Voice: 626-676-7884
E-mail: info_at_afghanwomensmission.org

On Sunday, March 3, lectures and a play will highlight Afghan women’s struggles for social equality and rights as Neesha Mirchandani of the Afghan Women’s Mission visits the city where modern democracy evolved.

“Our founding fathers and mothers believed in a dream called democracy,” said Mirchandani, the operations manager of AWM, which raises money and awareness for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. “Today, the same is true in Afghanistan: RAWA continues to believe in that very same dream of rights for people who need them.”

Mirchandani will be speaking at noon at the Arch Street Friends’ Meeting house, and at Robin’s Bookstore at 5:30. In between, she will travel to Newtown to play the part of the Afghan woman in a production of The Vagina Monologues at 2:30 at Bucks County Community College.

All three events bring to light the story of the hard-working women of Afghanistan, who for 23 years have been fighting for equal rights. They realize that they need to have the orphanages, schools, and hospital, but they know without the rallies, demonstrations and documenting human rights violations and publications, the long-term picture is no better than today, Mirchandani says.

Her Vagina Monologues role portrays a woman who turns the burqa, the head to toe Afghan veil, from a prison into a strategic weapon of justice.

“The women of Afghanistan make heart-wrenching choices… A prostitute on the streets of Kabul said, ‘If you had to choose between watching your children slowly starve to death or selling your body, which would YOU choose?'” her character asks.

Friends Meeting House is located at 4th & Arch Streets, or reach them on the web at http://www.archstreetfriends.org/events/rawa020303.html.

Bucks County Community College is located at 275 Swamp Road, Newtown.

Robin’s Bookstore is located at 108 S. 13th Street, or see www.robinsbookstore.com .

The Afghan Women’s Mission, an organization dedicated to working with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, is a group of people moved to action by the plight of Afghan women. The mission was founded in January 2000 in response to the compelling need for adequate hospital facilities in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan.

More information about the plight of Afghan refugees is available on the RAWA website, www.rawa.org.