St. Louis International Institute An Afghan Community Center and the National Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce will open in South St. Louis in February to help Afghans preserve their identity and learn entrepreneurship skills.
Afghans can take Farsi and English language classes and attend public speaking events and after-school programs and workshops that will help them thrive while living in the region. The Chamber provides business training and financial literacy education to Afghans to help encourage entrepreneurship.
The new business programs and classes can help Afghans build communities and businesses in St. Louis, said Moji Siddiqui, manager of the agency’s Afghan Community Outreach Program.
“The Chamber of Commerce is going to create opportunities for financial growth,” Siddiqui said. “This will really take the situation of the Afghan economy to another level.”
The new community center will be housed in the old Hispanic Chamber of Commerce building in Metropolitan St. Louis, off South Grand Avenue near Gravois Park. The Chamber of Commerce operates from the center.
Last year, the facility helped resettle more than 700 Afghans who fled Afghanistan because they feared for their lives when the Taliban took control of their homeland.
Some of the Afghans coming to St. Louis have entrepreneurial experience and want to start a business in their new hometown, said Ari Obersen, the institute’s CEO and president.
“They came here as refugees… [and] They are now taxpayers. Now they’re employees,” Obenson said. “Now they are in many cases, entrepreneurs, many of them are running DoorDash and Uber. So they are adding significantly to the economic prosperity of the society.
Obenson hopes the community center and chamber of commerce will encourage other Afghans to move to St. Louis to take advantage of its resources and boost the region’s economy.
So far, 131 Afghans have entered the region from other cities of the country.
“Hopefully, we will see many of them set up businesses with the help of the resources provided by the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce,” Obenson said.
The Chamber of Commerce offers entrepreneurship and skills training courses for women, including sewing and cooking classes, to inspire Afghan women to start clothing companies or restaurants.
Being a female entrepreneur is largely discouraged in Afghan culture. Hopefully the programs will inspire Afghan women to acquire business skills, Siddiqui said.
“We’re taking the demographics of people, and we’re putting them in a place where they can connect with their own identity, but they’re growing up in a new city that’s their new home,” she said.
