Talking with Tim

This email interview with Afghan Women’s Writing Project (AWWP) founder, award-winning author Masha Hamilton, was set months ago, but I dropped the ball. In a sense, though, I am glad that this interview was delayed. This time of year, I like to think people are more charitable. So once you read about the AWWP, an organization devoted to giving Afghan women the ability to voice their opinions without the filter of male relatives or the media-and visited the AWWP website-I hope you consider donating to its cause. My thanks to Hamilton for her time and thoughts, as well as to AWWP’s Lynn Harris for helping to arrange this email interview.

Tim O’Shea: In a sense, do you think mentors benefit almost as much from the experience as the contributors?

Masha Hamilton: Absolutely. A bridge is being built between Afghan women and both mentors and readers abroad that I think is important to both sides. To read some of the mentors’ comments on our site, look here. Here is one quote from Stacy Parker Le Melle, but you can pick any one you’d like:

“Magical. How else to describe sitting at my computer in Harlem, USA, and connecting with young women in Afghanistan, women who want to better themselves as communicators so that they can be heard at home and all over the world? I cannot thank Masha Hamilton and her partners enough for creating this cyberspace classroom. At times, it feels like we’re meeting in our dreams.”

O’Shea: What are some of the more unique topics tackled by contributors?

Hamilton: The site can be overwhelming to a first-time visitor because there is so much information and so many wonderful essays and poems. A good place to start here here. You can read “My First Namaz,” a lovely poem on loss and prayer, or “I Thought It Was A Dream, But When I Woke Up, I Couldn’t Walk,” written by one of our writers who went to the hospital to visit her grandfather, and while there, met a girl who had lost her legs in a suicide attack. “Running for Parliament, Afghan-Style” is another favorite, by a woman writer who decided to throw her hat in the ring, and won! There is an open letter to President Obama and an open letter to Secretary of State Clinton. “Remembering Fifteen” is one of my personal favorite poems, in which one of our writer remembers being 15 years old, on the cusp of womanhood.

O’Shea: How important are donations to making this project an ongoing viable project?

Hamilton: Absolutely critical. Although we are volunteer-based, we are trying to get our writers laptops and Internet service, and provide Internet cafes for them in undisclosed locations. Rent and security as well as ongoing Internet service is not inexpensive. We have six writers now in a Taliban-dominated province waiting for us to get them Internet. It costs roughly $2,500 a year per writer to support the program.

O’Shea: Unlike writers, who are hoping to raise their profile and market themselves, as noted at the website: “Most of our Afghan writers participate in the project partially or entirely in secret from friends and family.” Clearly it is stressful for participants to risk being found out, but on the administration end how stressful is it to work with these brave women but make sure you do not accidentally reveal their talents/efforts to the wrong people?

Hamilton: We use first names only on the site and take out specific locators. We do not give out their email addresses to anyone not directly associated with AWWP. We have a security team who helps us consider ongoing issues. And we intentionally err on the side of safety. BUT, we still want to keep the project going, because we believe if we shut it down out of security concerns, we are effectively doing the same thing as those who would silence the Afghan woman, even if our motivation is different.

O’Shea: Looking at the project’s Facebook page, I noticed that readers are encouraged to give contributors feedback. In most situations, writers crave feedback-but am I correct in thinking feedback in this situation is appreciated like rain in the middle of a long drought?

Hamilton: The comments are important. The writers know they are being heard. We have a writer who walks four hours each way from a Taliban-controlled province to send us a poem. We don’t want her work to sit out there without comment.