The Dressmaker Of Khair Khana

The remarkable story of an unlikley entrepreneur who, against all odds, saved her family and inspired her community in Afghanistan.

When the Taliban took control of Kabul, Kamela Sediqi and all the women of Kabul saw their lives transformed. Overnight, they were banned from schools and offices and even forbidden from leaving their front doors on their own. The economy collapsed and young men left the city in search of work and security. Desperate to help her family and support her five brothers and sisters at home, Kamela began sewing cothes in her living room. Little did she know that the tailoring business she started to help her siblings would be the beginning of a dresmaking business that would create jobs and hope for one hundred neighbourhood women and would come to mean the difference between starvation and survival for hundreds of families like her own.

Gayle Tzamach Lemmon worked as a journalist for nearly ten years and as a producer with ABC News Political Unit. She has an MBA from Harvard where she began writing about women entrepreneurs in war zones, including in Afghanistan.