Winner, Silver Medal in the Multicultural Category, 2018 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards Fifteen years ago, Rangina Hamidi decided to dedicate her life to helping rebuild her native Kandahar, Afghanistan. The Taliban had been driven out by American forces following 9/11, but Kandahar was a shambles. Tens of thousands of women, widowed by years of conflict, struggled to support themselves and their families. Rangina started an entrepreneurial enterprise, using the exquisite traditional embroidery of Kandahar, to help women work within the cultural boundaries of Pashtunwali to earn their living and to find a degree of self-determination. Thus Kandahar Treasure was born. This book traces the converging paths of traditional khamak embroidery and the 300 brave women who have found in it a way to build their lives. The late, award-winning photojournalist Paula Lerner was dedicated to telling the stories of women in Afghanistan. Her remarkable images throughout the book show Afghan women's profound struggle, strength, and beauty.
Rangina Hamidi is the founder and president of Kandahar Treasure. She has served as the manager of the women's Income Generation Project for Afghans for Civil Society and lives in Kandahar.
Mary Littrell is a professor, Department Head Emerita of Design and Merchandising, a research associate at the Museum of International Folk Art, and serves as chair of the Artist Selection Committee for the International Folk Art Market. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Paula Lerner was an award-winning photojournalist and multimedia producer. She was the principal photographer for the Emmy Award-winning project, Behind the Veil.
"These rich and complex accounts of actual women underscore the intricacy of life in Afghanistan. This honest, close up view of the daily workings of a women-led Afghan business shows the intersection of the intimate with the geopolitical." -- Dr. Rachel Lehr, Fulbright Scholar and Research Associate, University of Colorado; author, The Carpetbaggers of Kabul and Other American-Afghan Entanglements
"The authors have collaborated in deftly crafting a fascinating, impressively informative, compelling study that is unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library Women's Studies collection in general, and Contemporary Afghanistan Cultural collections in particular." -- Margaret Lane, Midwest Book Review
"Embroidering within Boundaries is a gorgeous visual, but also touching testimony of how traditional textile craft and the women behind the needle and thread can forge a new path for themselves in a region so wrought with conflict and hardship." -- Rebeca Schiller, Editor, Hand/Eye Magazine
