By Carrie Ferrence, from the Kiva newsletter.
“In Tajikistan, women often joke that they “don’t have husbands, only names of husbands”. This is because each year several hundred thousand men leave Tajikistan for Russia in hopes of finding work that will feed their families back home. Kumri Orifova and her sisters found themselves in this situation when unemployment rose after Tajikistan gained its independence from the U.S.S.R. in the early 1990s.
Kumri has a university degree, and before Tajikistan gained independence she had worked for many years as an accountant at a Soviet-run sewing factory. For the most part she enjoyed the work. However, in the early 1990s the Tajik government took over management of the factory, and with a civil war waging, the factory did not receive enough funding or support to continue operating – after several years, the government stopped funding the project altogether. Kumri’s husband and her sisters’ husbands left to find work in Russia, and Kumri found herself unemployed and responsible for her three children and her husband’s aunt.
For many, this is where the story would take a turn for the worst. In Kumri’s story, however, this is where she began to show what a determined woman is capable of.
Kumri decided to start her own sewing business, immediately convincing her two sisters, Farogat Muhamadova and Sharifa Kosimova, to join her in the venture. Instead of operating the business as three joint owners, they operate more like a cooperative – each has the ability to invest in and profit from their own financial decisions. They started small, borrowing enough money from friends and family to rent a space and a few machines – eventually reinvesting the profits to purchase the machines outright. They were able to find enough work to hire an additional 4 sewers, all of whom were related to the sisters in some way. They have contracts with several local factories to sew uniforms, but are also able to devote some of their time to sewing the national dress for women in their community.
The business was successful, so four years ago Kumri decided to branch out. She joined with a few other investors to purchase a weaving factory so that her sewing factory could source fabric at a cheaper price, without having to pay a middleman. They found a factory that employed blind weavers and had suffered a similar fate to her previous employer; after being started by the Tajik government as a way to provide jobs and housing to legally blind adults from all over the country, its doors were closed after economic hardships hit. Kumri and her business partners were now in ownership of a successful sewing factory and a weaving factory that employed 40 blind men and women.
Even with a direct supply of fabric at cost, the full potential for Kumri’s enterprise had not yet been reached. The sewing machines she had were old, and Kumri believed they could increase production if they had new machines.
About six months ago Kumri and her sisters received their first business loans from IMON International, a Kiva Field Partner since December 2007. Kumri and Farogat each took out loans for $600, and they used this money to purchase three new sewing machines, phasing out some of the older machines that had become too difficult to use.
Even they were shocked by the impact of such a small loan: the factory went from sewing 10 uniforms a day to 50. And after only a few months of this increased productivity, Kumri and her sisters were able to secure more factory contracts and hire three more sewers.
More sewers means more contracts. More contracts means more fabric. And, hopefully, more fabric means more work for the weavers as well.
When I visited the factories in November, I was surprised by the size of the factory. After visiting so many clients who ran one-person businesses, it was so nice to see an entrepreneur who had been able to build something so much bigger. Even still, while Kumri refers to the business as a factory, it is not much more than a big room crammed tightly with sewing machines, bolts of fabric, and a large cutting table. The large windows that line all four walls of the space do little to stop the wind and cold air from pervading the space – even on a sunny Fall day, the sewers were struggling to stay warm. A small coal stove in the middle of the room was the only source of heat and was a popular gathering spot during Tajikistan’s harsh winter. The women were only able to sew for about an hour at time, stopping for 20 minutes breaks to warm their hands.
On my way out of the factory I saw the building where all of the weavers live. The government had provided this housing when it ran the factory, but when the government liquidated the business, they also stopped paying for workers’ living expenses.
Ravshan Anormatov, one of the weavers, works in the weaving factory with his wife, and he was grateful for the opportunity to tell me his story. He grew up in Isfara, but spent many years in Dushanbe at a school for the blind, where he learned how to weave at a job-training program. Immediately after graduating, he was placed at the factory where he has worked for 30 years. He admits that work was busier when the government used to own the factory because there were always large contracts to fill. Back then, they weaved large rugs and large quantities of fabric. Work now is a little slower, but at least it’s work and he’s optimistic that they will be busier as the business continues to grow. His goal is to start making enough money to build a home for his family, as he currently lives in a cramped one bedroom apartment with his wife and their five children, in a worn down building, a block from the factory.
Kumri and her sisters eagerly talk about their future plans for the business. Each month, they set aside 5-10% of their salary, so that they eventually hire more sewers and finance their business’ expansion. They have big plans to open workshops in other towns in the region.
Just five years ago, they were trying to create jobs for themselves but now they are excited by the possibility of creating jobs for others in Tajikistan. In fact, when they talk about business growth, they don’t mention their own personal profit, but instead count how many jobs they were able to create.
Kumri initially started working with blind people in order to get a tax break which the government provides to employers of people with disabilities. But, now she is really excited about the prospect of continuing to work with disabled communities. She is very upset that Tajikistan does not have access to industry or to work, that men are forced to leave their families and find work in Russia, and she is now focused on continuing to grow her business so that she can create more jobs for Tajikis, right here in their own community. She sees her work as a way to improve life in Tajikistan, and I feel confident that she will succeed in her ventures and create more than just a job for her employees: she’ll create a community.”
Carrie Ferrence lives in Seattle, WA, and is a recently returned Kiva Fellow who worked with IMON International in Tajikistan from October through December 2008.
