After the fall of the Taliban at the close of 2001, nearly 40 Afghan women travelled to Brussels for a UNIFEM-sponsored roundtable to identify the most urgent needs of Afghan women in the war-ravaged country. Among the roundtable recommendations drafted was the need to establish a women's radio station, to convey messages of peace and information on reconstruction, rehabilitation and political developments’. With the support of the Department of Canadian Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), IMPACS began investigating ways it could respond to this urgent call to action. In a DFAIT-supported field assessment conducted in the region in February 2002 by IMPACS' Executive Director Shauna Sylvester and Media Programs Director Mirga Saltmiras learned from Afghan media stakeholders that despite a great number of international media initiatives taking root in Kabul, no single initiative was devoted solely to supporting Afghan women, and little attention was placed on the role media could play in reintroducing Afghan women into civil society. A meeting in Peshawar with exiled Afghan women journalists, many of whom had received degrees from the Kabul University Faculty of Journalism and once figured prominently in Afghan radio and television, reiterated the needs and desires to reconstruct these programs with a new emphasis on gender. The IMPACS project has since been designed to build support for Afghan women in the reconstruction of their society and institutions. IMPACS received funding from the CIDA Peacebuilding Unit to commence Phase One of a women's media project in Kabul. In partnership with the UNESCO-supported women's NGO, Afghan Women in Media Network, IMPACS offered radio and television training for women journalists, beginning with classroom courses on basic reporting skills. Radio training was a particular emphasis of the project, because of the exceptionally low literary rates, especially among women who were banned from receiving any form of education under the Taliban. Radio also reaches a wider audience than television; a medium few families can afford. In addition to journalist training, the project also arranged international exchanges in Canada and with like-minded women's media organisations in Asia. A radio station was set up in Mazar e Sharif in the spring of 2003 and future stations are planned.