# Folklife, Foodways, and Women's Empowerment in Afghanistan

This film highlights the work of Nasrin Rafiq, a longtime director of USAID's women's empowerment programs in Afghanistan, moved to the U.S. in 2017. She talks about the ways traditional arts and knowledge fueled economic development for Afghanistan's women, and how specialty dishes like Qabuli Pulao and Shir Berenj reinforce community values. She joins host Carolina Moratti of the Share Your Foodways initiative of the division of folklife and cultural heritage at the Arts Institute of Middlesex County (N.J.), to demonstrate how to make Qabuli Pulao and Dogh, an evening yogurt drink. She also makes bread at an outdoor brick oven and demonstrates the technique in crafting Bolani, flat bread stuffed with potatoes. The American Folklife Center's Homegrown Foodways in Central New Jersey film series is a collaboration with folklorist Sally Van de Water and colleagues at the Arts Institute of Middlesex County where Van de Water is folklife programs manager. The series highlights in three films the many ways that foodways are essential to create, reinforce and reinvent community.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2022
- By: American Folklife Center
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2024698298/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/2024698298?play=1)