Having  returned from Azerbaijan with a suitcase full of knitted slippers, Ōpōtiki woman Susan Byford is now trying to sell them at markets and elsewhere.

“I recently visited my son, who lives there and teaches English and philosophy,” she said.

Her son, Gilbert Bates, has been teaching overseas for years, even developed his own methodology. He is married to Kifayet Talibzada.

“Masalli is a village not far from the border with Iran and the women are traditionally Muslim,” Ms Byford said.

“This means they are not allowed to work after they have married.”

Instead, they meet at Mr Bates home, drink tea with his wife and make slippers.

“By selling them here we can get them a little bit of income,” Ms Byford said.

“The big ones go for $40 and the rest are $35.”

Standing up for women in Azerbaijan

After twice having her visa application to come to New Zealand turned down, Kifayat Talibzada and her partner, Gilbert Bates, with whom she was in a long-distance relationship, started a project to empower women in the rural areas of Azerbaijan where she lived....

We aimed to support women in rural areas of Azerbaijan while also preserving Azerbaijan's cultural heritage – this culture has been passed down to us from our grandmothers, who always used to knit socks in our families.

However, as time passes, this tradition is fading away.

Gilbert sent the funds, and I began assembling a team in rural Azerbaijan.

In many regions, women face limited economic and social opportunities, making it challenging for them to sell the goods that they produce.

Their dependence on others can put women at risk of having their rights violated and in Azerbaijan some women from rural areas are killed by their family members.

To empower women, it’s crucial to expand their economic and social opportunities.

We created the AzerJorab Women Community so woman can socialise and create together.

Many of these women may not have had the opportunity to come together in such a positive and empowering space before.

The women can work, build friendships, learn new skills and feel empowered through their shared creativity – and the first products were shipped to New Zealand, where Gilbert and his mother, Susan, sold the slippers.

In 2021, we won a Women Empowerment grant from the UNDP, which took the project to a new level, and in 2022, we received the Gender Equality Prize from the French and German Embassies, and our project began to gain recognition within Azerbaijan.

In 2023, we won a grant from the American Embassy to organize a Folklore Festival in Masalli, where the project is based.

In 2024, AzerJorab was selected for the Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative program, which is run by the U. Department of State.

We were chosen as one of 50 social entrepreneurs from 50 European countries.

This year, we were selected from Azerbaijan to spend two months in the USA to learn about social enterprise from an American perspective.