Many Afghans lost jobs when the US-led NATO camp in Khost, Sahra Bagh, closed. Finding alternate employment in the private sector was a challenge.
Many Afghans lost jobs when the US-led NATO camp in Khost, Sahra Bagh, closed. Finding alternate employment in the private sector was a challenge.Shahpoor Entezar who lives in the neighbourhood of the camp says many stayed jobless for months. “But now I see many youths have started new businesses. They are less worried about the future,” he believes.
However, not everybody who was employed with the foreign forces has been absorbed in the private sector. The camp had employed tens of thousands of locals. Some are still sitting at home without work, not because they could not find work, but because after the high salaries at Sahra Bagh they are not prepared to take anything less.
“My advice to them is to start a business with the money they have saved. Their money would be safe, and they would have work to do,” says Entezar who is a trader.
Some of those retrenched from jobs at the US-led NATO base in Khost have taken loans to set up self-employed businesses. Entezar approves of the initiative they have shown. “Many of the problems of jobless youth would be solved, and they would not resort to starting illegal businesses for earning money,” he believes.
Helping each other
Din Wali, the president of the association of retailers in Khost City, says he knows of many young men who launched start-ups. Some shopkeepers have helped young men from their own communities and families to find work even in their own businesses. “We prepared a plan with our friends which enabled our jobless people to find work or recruited them into our own shops,” he told Killid.
Mohammad Khan from Khost had worked for four years at the Sahra Bagh camp before the camp was wound up. “We have not lost ambition,” he says. “Everyone should be ambitious. Everyone can start small businesses,” he believes.
Khan who was jobless for two months is now ranked among Khost’s big business. “I started a business. Now I am counted among the top businessmen,” he says with obvious pride. He has 50 people working for him.
