Healing Power Zohra Shamszai was in her sixth month of medical school when the Taliban took over Kabul and closed the university. For the first time in her life, she put on a burqa. "I felt like a bird in the cage. I had a kind of vomiting feeling, getting used to it," she says. "The main thing bothering me then was my education."
by Lynn Heinisch
Zohra did not return to school for four years, until the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. Sometimes she dreamed that she was back at the university, with her books, which she interpreted as a hopeful sign. Zohra is the youngest child in a family that values schooling. Her mother was an obstetrician at a time when many women did not work, and her brother and one of her four sisters are doctors. In 2000, she joined CARE on a health project for war widows. 
Zohra Shamszai, left, talks with CARE President Helene Gayle, who holds the three-month-old baby of a young woman in Zorha's peer health education project. (©2006 CARE/Lynn Heinisch)
"When I first started interviewing them, I couldn't finish because I would start crying," she says. "They would tell shocking stories that I couldn't tolerate to hear."
Now 25, Zohra manages CARE's program on maternal and newborn health, and is in her fifth year of medical school at the University of Kabul. She hopes to become an obstetrician, like her mother, which will require three more years of school and training.
"I know how difficult life is for women, even educated women," Zohra says. "Women do not have good access to clinics. This is something really important to be involved in. We are proud of our work. At least we are doing something for the women of Afghanistan."
The project Zohra manages is a partnership between CARE, the Centers for Disease Control and the Afghan ministry of public health. Zohra's team trains neighborhood widows in first aid, birth preparedness and antenatal and postpartum care and pays them $4 a day to serve as community-based educators. The women are responsible for 150 houses each, and visit up to nine houses a day.
Today, Zohra and CARE President Helene D. Gayle accompany community educator Anesa to a house in Kabul's District 7. They visit the home of Nasima, 23, who has a 3-month-old baby and three other children under the age of 5. The young woman and her family returned to Afghanistan last year after eight years in a refugee camp in Pakistan. Like many Afghans, they were driven from home by years of civil war and the Taliban government.
When Nasima returned to Kabul, she says, she didn't know where to go for health care and to immunize her children. Her baby, Ebadullah, is underweight, but active and alert. Anesa, the community educator, kneels next to Nasima, asking questions and taking notes.
"When you come and visit, I know there are women who are concerned about me and that I am not alone," Nasima says.
Nasima has suffered four miscarriages and says she would like to practice family planning, but her husband is not interested. In her outreach, Zohra explains that Islam supports family planning. "There are some very good quotations about child spacing and small families. It is a very perfect religion," she says. "It is just that the men want to have a lot of children, and preference for having a son increases the number of children."
When community educators began working, Zohra says, some families refused to let them in. They persisted, explaining to husbands and mothers-in-law the importance of improving the health of women and children.
"We started to educate the family. Before, men were not allowing women to go to the hospital. Now we are proud to see changes," says one community educator. "It feels good to see that my messages are helping the community. And I am paid, so I can take good care of my children and send them to school."
Zohra also sees signs of progress. "During the Taliban, women didn't have the chance to talk to each other. They didn't go out of the house. Now they can go out. Girls can discuss things at school," she says. "Sometimes the women are very open, and start telling you all their stories very openly. This is the nature of Afghan women, they are very strong and very hopeful."
Just like Zohra Shamszai.
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