The items on display are part of a show called Dil Bah Dil Rah Dhara which means From One Heart To Another There Is A Way. They were made by six women from Afghanistan who came to the New Bedford area in late 2021 and early 2022 as refugees after the central Asian country was taken over by the Taliban.
Mali Lim works for the city of New Bedford as the Program Director for Community Education and Diversity. She is part of a group called the Southcoast Afghan Welcome Network.
Mali Lim: It’s a loose coalition of government offices, local nonprofits, schools, churches, interested individuals. We all came together to form this this welcome network. Because at the time we had 45 Afghan refugees arriving. And we were scrambling to find homes, enroll them in schools, help them find jobs.
The network put together many services to help the families settle into life in New Bedford and help them become self-sufficient.
Lim: You know, we’ve got doctors, we’ve got surgeons, we’ve got, you know, nonprofit workers, but we also had women who had never worked outside of the home, had no English skills, and they had very young children and they weren’t going to be able to find work in the United States very easily. But while we were holding the classes, the financial literacy classes, it came out that a lot of the women even though they may not have had traditional education in Afghanistan, all of the women had these beautiful skills, they could do these gorgeous handicrafts and traditional Afghan artwork.
The network secured grant money and some donated supplies and paid the women to create dresses, pillows, necklaces and wall hangings. Dabeeri Emad worked with the media in Afghanistan before she came to New Bedford.
Dabeeri Emad: There’s a great difference between our dresses and dresses people wear here. Like they are always loose inside they’re not very tight. And they’re very embroidered, heavily embroidered. And you will find we have kind of coins in that. So they’re just like artificial ones but in back in the country most of the people they use the real silver coins in that and they’re very heavy. and then we have another kind of dresses that we have a lot of beads work on that. That’s the kind of like party dresses when you go to some parties and casual but something you wear and then we have bridal dresses.
The bridal dresses feature coins and beads and detailed needlework. Olivia Melo is the library director for New Bedford Libraries. She said that people who are familiar with crochet and needlework will appreciate seeing the detailed work.
Olivia Melo: It really is an a piece of art for somebody who’s a crocheter and it will be recognized as very detailed work and a lot of hours spent because it’s it’s with the crochet threads is a very fine thread with a very tiny needle. And it is it is a very beautiful piece of work to see.
Along with the dresses, there are wall hangings, decorated vases and pillows in a deep blue or maroon with star patterns and bright yellow borders. After the exhibit ends at the end of March, the items will be sold at auction with the proceeds going back to the women to help them establish businesses built around making more handicrafts. It’s all part of the effort to help the refugee families settle in New Bedford. Here’s Dabeeri Emad again.
Emad: Sometimes you cannot find words to describe, but I must really say, New Bedford had such a great community and welcomed all these people. There was tremendous help from the community that helped all the people stand on the own their feet and make steps for the future in this country.
You can see Dil Bah Dil Rah Dhara, From One Heart To Another There Is A Way at the New Bedford Free Public Library now through March 31st and we’ll have links to their auction on our website.
