Designer Profile Tania Azizi

Tania Azizi -

Tania spent much of her childhood in Afghanistan learning to read by candlelight, in mortal fear of the Taliban discovering her with a book. Now, under the mentorship of Solace International’s Michelle Winston, she designs beautiful fashions and accessories in the Nepal capital of Kathmandu. 

Growing up in the relative stability of Sheberghan, a city in northern Afghanistan far from the dangerous streets of Kabul, Tania would sometimes sneak looks at copies of outlawed western and Bollywood fashion magazines that her sisters kept hidden in the house. The Azizi family — including Tania’s parents and her three sisters — lived in a small two-room house on a busy street, but Tania was not allowed to go outside unless accompanied by her father or another male relative, even to go to the market just a few blocks away. Her only contact with other women was when customers would come by to visit the makeshift salon her mother had running in the back of their home.

Tania’s father, Ayub, had a college degree but worked as taxi driver and sold fruit at a local stand. He swore when the Taliban took power in Afghanistan that he would fight to provide an opportunity for a better life for his four daughters.
In 2002,  he was hired by Solace founder and Executive Director Nathaniel York to be the facilitator of Solace’s work in Afghanistan.
Tania herself joined Solace’s efforts in 2004 when Program Manager Michelle Winston formed several women’s cooperatives in Afghanistan to create beautiful scarves and embroidered fabrics. Though only 15, Tania took on the role of supervisor and quality control manager for these cooperatives, at one point helping to manage more than 500 women from several villages.

But the Azizi family was forced to flee Afghanistan in 2006 when local Taliban commanders threatened the family if Ayub did not sell Tania and her sisters as wives. The family emigrated to Malawi, with Solace’s assistance, enabling the Azizis to start a new life.

In Malawi, Tania and her sisters were enrolled a private school in the capital city of Lilongwe, where Tania was able to take classes in drawing and design. She received some of best grades in a school filled with children of foreign embassy staffs and well-to-do businessmen.

Now, Tania works with Michelle Winston in Nepal, building that country’s Solace Cottage Industry Program and developing her own line of fashions and accessories. And this past spring Tania returned to Afghanistan for the first time in five years to help with Solace’s women’s cooperatives.