Mentoring Program Making Difference Half a World Away

By Melissa Maynarich, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A group of business women from Afghanistan have joined in on a mentorship program in an effort to promote "Peace Through Business."

Twenty-nine women from Afghanistan and Rwanda are in the U.S. to learn how to run a business and the latest technology from local business-women.

The program is called "Peace Through Business." Roqia Sajjadi traveled from Kabul, Afghanistan to a local CPA's office in Oklahoma City.

"I learn more and more about management. It's very useful. It's very good for me," Saijadi said.

Saijadi is the owner of her own accounting business in Afghanistan, but she is learning how to better execute operations at her company by the example of her mentor.

"They have employee problems, they have cash flow problems. You know, how do I get the money to do this? How do I serve my clients better? Their issues are the same, and that's what you find is that we're all doing the same thing, just a little differently," said Nancy Hyde, an accountant and Saijadi's mentor in the "Peace Through Business" program.

Saijadi and Hyde were paired in the program by the Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women. In the "Peace Through Business" program, relationships are fostered to help with economic development in collaborating countries.

The Institute believes this program is an extension of what soldiers are fighting for in the war-weary nation of Afghanistan.

"Creating peace, and freedom, and democracy for their people, and we believe if you educate a women,you educate her family and you educate her village and her community," said Dr. Terry Neese, Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women founder.

Saijadi plans to return to her country and to her business with the knowledge she gained with her mentor hoping that what she knows now will help make a difference in the future.

"I want from my government help us, support us. Because we are women, and women don't have any support there. So I need your help, your government's help, my government's help and your attention," Saijadi said.

Once the women complete the program, they are committed to communicating with their mentors for at least one year.

Next week, all 29 women in the program are traveling to Dallas to meet and talk with former first lady Laura Bush.