Sonal Matin is a social media influencer with more than 13 million followers and an organic soap bar that is helping Afghan women in her homeland.
I was always passionate about helping empower Afghan women. I was a professor at the American University of Afghanistan from 2011 to 2014 and was given the opportunity to be a home study in the U.S. After I returned to Afghanistan, I am now working full time as the Communications Manager for the NGO World Wide Possible.
I was referred to this project because I have a lot of followers. Some of my followers asked what I do and I told them I’m interested in developing women in Afghanistan through my soap bars. They told me to contact one of the NGO’s. I have been in contact with them and they are supporting this project. The NGO’s will take care of the packaging, production, and distribution. They are also giving us financial backing.
If our soap bar is deemed successful, we can teach more women how to make soap bars and show them how to do it. Since I was a professor, a lot of our students became involved in cooking and the arts and we wanted to continue this. We could organize a course in our province for our students to come here and make soap bars using my soap bar formula.
My soap bar recipe consists of combining essential oils and oils we get from plants and getting them from the laboratory at the national institute of ingredients and it takes some time to develop a recipe. I went back to my native land with a lot of love for this country, now I have so much passion for giving back.
NY1 is a production of WNYC and written by Darcy Morgan. Darcy Morgan is a producer.