For centuries, women in Afghanistan's dusty plains and steep valleys have created textiles of extraordinary beauty and complexity. Working with homespun wool from landscapes as barren as the moon, these artisans weave abstract compositions in black and white against deep red backgrounds. At their finest, these carpets represent mysterious and mesmerizing works of art, produced collectively by communities where literacy was rare but artistic skill flourished.
However, decades of warfare have taken their toll on this ancient tradition. When the UK-based nonprofit organization Turquoise Mountain began collaborating with Afghan carpet weavers in the 2010s, they found the remaining workshops in poor condition and struggling to survive. The organization stepped in to provide high-quality wool, dyes, and equipment while introducing standardization measures including preset sizes, patterns, and color schemes designed to attract large-scale orders from American homeware retailers.
Today, Turquoise Mountain supports 8,000 weavers who produce thousands of carpets annually. Beyond textile production, the organization operates mobile clinics that provide free healthcare to more than 30,000 Afghans. "That's the difference between us if we were running an interiors business and what we actually are," explains Shoshana Stewart, Turquoise Mountain's president, during a meeting at her South Kensington home shared with her husband, former cabinet minister Rory Stewart. "We exist with a mission to preserve traditions."
Founded in 2006 by Rory and Shoshana Stewart with support from King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, Turquoise Mountain operates on the premise that preserving traditional crafts and improving community welfare can work hand in hand. The organization began its work with Afghan woodcarvers in Kabul's Old City, where they discovered one of the last artisans capable of carving traditional panjareh fretwork screens selling fruit in the local bazaar. Through neighborhood restoration and establishing a craft school, Turquoise Mountain expanded its mission.
According to Shoshana Stewart, the organization pursues two distinct but overlapping goals. First, they aim to prevent the extinction of handmade goods endangered by war, poverty, and global supply chains. Second, they work to improve living conditions for the communities creating these products. After nearly two decades of operation, some of these preserved traditions, including decorative woodwork and marquetry, will be featured in an exhibition at Sotheby's in London later this month.
The organization now works with at-risk communities in Afghanistan, Myanmar, and the Levant, focusing on intensive handwork that bridges art and high-end consumer goods. Former charity director Rory Stewart, who led the organization until 2008, emphasizes how the luxury market has become crucial to their success. "When I started, it was very much one commission here, one commission there," he recalls. "Now it's much more professional with very particular quality and logistics control." To date, Turquoise Mountain has sold more than $17 million worth of work directly to clients and facilitated over $20 million in sales by the artists they support.
Creative director Thalia Kennedy explains that Turquoise Mountain develops products through close collaboration with artisans. In Myanmar, for example, the organization explored textile traditions across the country's many fractured communities and discovered they needed to adjust the colors of acheik, a royal Burmese silk woven on meter-wide looms using 100 shuttles, before it could be marketed as high-end furnishing fabric. In contrast, textiles created by women using back-strap looms in Kachin State, despite being produced amid a multi-front civil war, required no modifications for international markets.
The organization relies entirely on donor funding, growing from $1.1 million in donations during its first year to approximately ten times that amount today. About 60 percent of their current budget comes from government sources, with the remainder from foundations and private donors. "We still don't make a profit," Shoshana Stewart emphasizes. "The people making money are the artisans." She argues that manufacturing is financially sustainable, with sales profits covering supplies, transportation, and labor costs, making all prices reflect real market values.
Turquoise Mountain's ultimate goal is to become unnecessary to the artists they support. After providing training and opening viable markets, the organization aims to remove itself from the equation entirely. "We initially faced resistance," Shoshana admits, attributing their eventual success to placing artistic heritage at the center of their approach. Rory Stewart agrees, noting that "So many donor projects in Afghanistan treated people just as victims. It was like: 'You're poor, you're uneducated, you're unhealthy – we're going to come and teach you.' This inverts that model."
The organization's 500 staff members also work to ensure access to education, healthcare, and clean drinking water, which helps them gain community acceptance. When asked about the Taliban government allowing them to continue working with women at such scale in Afghanistan, Shoshana responds confidently: "They don't want to say no." She believes the Taliban appreciates that Turquoise Mountain celebrates Afghan beauty and culture.
While large-scale job creation and healthcare services remain uncontroversial, the same cannot be said of the Taliban's gender policies. In September, the UN refugee agency had to cut services in Afghanistan after female staff members were barred from work. However, Shoshana firmly believes in working in situations where they can make significant impact, emphasizing that her organization "is not an advocacy organization and never will be." Instead, they take a pragmatic, deliberately apolitical approach, choosing to work in Myanmar where the junta has other priorities, but avoiding Syria where the Assad regime was more controlling.
In their South Kensington drawing room, the Stewarts display a large calligraphic canvas featuring Persian poetry overlaid on abstract gold and silver forms. This piece, created by Afghan artist Alibaba Awrang who taught at Turquoise Mountain's Kabul headquarters until the Taliban takeover in 2021, exemplifies the organization's achievement in transforming heritage into original, vital works of art. Awrang's stenciled murals were recently unveiled at the Wadsworth Museum in Connecticut, demonstrating how traditional techniques can evolve into contemporary artistic expressions.
Despite these successes, significant challenges remain. Heritage preservation requires thriving independent industries to survive long-term, something many of Turquoise Mountain's artisans still struggle to achieve. The organization continues working toward a future where these ancient crafts can sustain themselves in modern markets while maintaining their cultural integrity and providing meaningful livelihoods for skilled artisans.
