After four years of drought and years of rockets that damaged the irrigation system, the gardens of Kabul desperately needed gardeners. And after 23 years of war people need to be gardeners, to watch their efforts bear fruit. Heather Bellamy and Darla Milne from the NGO GAP worked with women in the Afghan refugee camps for years. While on holiday at home in Canada listening to the news they realised that their work wasn’t finished. Widows in Afghanistan have little support and often must resort to begging to gain money for food. Under the Taliban women were not allowed to go out or laugh in public or dance. They were punished if their shoes made too much noise on the pavement. And of course music was banned. The process of healing has already started in the workplace for some women, but there remain few places for them to go to enjoy themselves without being harassed even today.

Darla and Heather took on the task of training 12 widows to reconstruct the Women’s Park Bagh e Zanana on behalf of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. When they first set foot there the ground was as solid as concrete, so their first job was to pick up a shovel and start digging. The initial resistance to manual labour from the widows (‘It’s the men’s job to shovel’), was overcome by the bald statement ‘if you want a park, dig in.’

In a recent lunchtime chat, Mastoura, a tiny frail-looking grandmother, said ‘When I came here I was weak and couldn’t even pull water out of a well. Now look at me!’ The other women burst into laughter as she wasn’t any larger than before. The strength came from within.

At first their lunchtime meetings were used to talk about their misery. Years of boredom waiting for husbands to return, and fears of being outside without a male chaperone, had left them with little will and no hope. Their training includes planting and transplanting. Only three of the 12 women can read and drawing a garden plan was useless as they couldn’t understand the drawing. ‘Just tell us where to plant,’ they said.

Afghans have a love of gardens and in the past sculptured gardens could be seen all over Kabul. For this project the earth had first to be found, then the seeds and cuttings obtained. Now they are into production and a greenhouse for seedlings has been built. A co-operative nursery with shrubs and flowers not found in Afghanistan is the next step.