"Dream & Achieve"

Maryam Al Ahmadi, Dream & Achieve's runner-up

Dream & Achieve, or Fekr wa Talosh aired as a 13-part series on Afghanistan’s Tolo TV in fall 2008, with an estimated seven million viewers tuning in to watch the exciting series finale. Six months earlier, the series kicked off with an extensive outreach effort in 6 major Afghan cities, from Herat to Kandahar to Kunduz. The outreach, supported by local universities, banks, NGOs, and women’s groups, was specifically designed to target and recruit underrepresented and disenfranchised groups. The diversity of contestants was astonishing, with women as an incredible third of all applicants, including two of the top three finalists.

Contestants

The winner, Faizulhaq Moshkani was a plastic recycler from Kandahar who expanded his plant to use renewable micro-hydro power, and the runner up, Maryam Al-Ahmadi was a woman who built a successful jam and pickling business employing hundreds of widows and refugees in Herat. Third place went to a young university student from Herat, Sohaila Vahidi, who had plans for a cotton and textiles business; Sohaila won a scholarship, sponsored by the American University of Afghanistan, to participate in Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women program. Other contestants included a former commander who had plans for a milk collection business employing former combatants; and a rice processing factory owner from Kunduz who was seeking to make his operation more sustainable.

Partners

The vital ecosystem of partners in Afghanistan included USAID, who sponsored the series and provided business development support to contestants through their Afghan Small and Medium Enterprise Development program; Roshan, Afghanistan’s main telecommunications company, who was the series anchor series sponsor; Bank-e-Millie, who sponsored the series and provided bank branches as a location for info sessions and application distribution; Ariana Financial Services, one of Afghanistan’s first microfinance banks, who helped develop series content regarding loans and appeared on the show when a contestant applied for a microloan; and the Export Agency of Afghanistan, which gave a cash prize for the business with the best export potential.