If you’ve followed our journey these past few years, you’ve heard all about Prosperity Candle’s pilot program in Baghdad in 2009, in which more than fifty women were trained to make candles from their homes. The pilot is where this crazy idea to empower women through home-based candle making proved to be not that crazy after all. In fact, it was so promising that the State Department approached Prosperity Catalyst and Prosperity Candle four years later with the prospect of returning to Iraq and growing the pilot into something much bigger.
You’ve likely also heard us mention women like Nazahat, who managed to earn 3.5 times the minimum wage in Iraq by making perfect candles from her home, as well as others like Wafa’a and Luma, whose determination and talent as candle makers make them top sellers, and inspirations to us all ever since we met them.
Nazahat with her children
When the grant was awarded last September, we were determined to find a way to involve these women in the program. Given their expertise, we dreamed of employing them as trainers who could return to Baghdad and train our program participants in candle making. However, we had no way of knowing if they were still making candles, if they were still in Baghdad, or if they had the same cell phone numbers as in 2009 (they didn’t).
It wasn’t easy, but thanks to the hard work of our local staff in Baghdad, we were able to track several women down, and found that many are still making candles. We asked them if they would be willing to travel to Turkey to be trained by Prosperity Candle, and then to work with us as trainers to other women in the coming months. They enthusiastically agreed! It was a dream come true and the beginning of a powerful, ongoing journey.
Stay tuned because in October, Prosperity Candle and Prosperity Catalyst will be traveling to Istanbul, Turkey to train four of these women, Nazahat among them.