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From Afghanistan to New Jersey
A Conversation with Two Young Afghan Women Studying in the U.S.
By Nishat Kurwa
Recently Youth Radio’s Nishat Kurwa talked with two young Afghan women who are students at Montclair State University in New Jersey. 23-year old Alean Haider and
21-year old Samira Panah were awarded full scholarships to attend college in the U.S. through a new program called “The Initiative to Educate Afghan Women”. The program is sponsoring twelve Afghan women now studying at nine different universities across the U.S.
Alean and Samira spoke with Nishat about what life was like in Afghanistan, and how their lives have changed since they started college in the U.S. Here are some excerpts from their conversation:
Nishat: Were you living in Afghanistan during the Taliban period, Alean?
Alean: Yes, I did live in Afghanistan.
Nishat: Can you talk a little bit about what that was like for you as a young woman?
Alean: For all the Afghan women it was a little bit difficult to live during the period of Taliban, because there wasn’t any possibility of education for women and they were just at home and doing nothing. It was difficult for everyone.
Nishat: Were you studying at home?
Alean: Yes. I studied my English course in secret during the Taliban period and then I started to teach English.
Nishat: Samira, I know you’ve only been here a few months so far, but how do you think you have been changed by your experiences here in the U.S.?
Samira: Oh, yes. The first thing I really noticed that was a big change is that I’m more self-confident now. When I lived with my family, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I was dependent on my family but still responsible for myself maybe twenty percent, and the rest my family was responsible for. Here all the responsibility belongs to us. And that’s one thing that really makes us be self-confident.
Nishat: Having just been in Afghanistan, I think that a lot of the girls I talked to expected that people only wanted to talk to them about the Taliban years. Something that they didn’t really get to talk about was who their role models were during that time. Being in Afghanistan, who were the role models for women to look to as inspirations?
Alean: All the women tried to help each other. For this reason the idea of secret courses came out and they started to establish some courses. Everyone would teach a different subject. It was difficult, but they would do it. They taught all the school subjects to the girls-- English, computers. For example, during the Taliban period I studied computers in secret.
Nishat: And you were an English teacher yourself. Were you ever scared of being found out?
Alean: No, actually I wasn’t scared. I had that feeling that I was helping women. It was a good feeling for me, I never thought about being scared.
Nishat: You know, when I talked to girls in Afghanistan they would all say things like I want to be a doctor and also I want to give back to Afghanistan, I want to be a teacher and I want to give back to Afghanistan, or I want to be a radio DJ and I want to give back to Afghanistan. No matter what a girl wanted to do they always mentioned this thing of giving back to the country. Can you talk about that aspect of national pride? It was really interesting for me to hear that from so many girls.
Samira: Yeah, actually, it’s…a feeling that everybody knows. In 23 years of war Afghanistan’s been completely destroyed. So not only the people who are inside Afghanistan, but those who are outside of the country as well, they want to do something for the country. Those who are in foreign countries, they get this feeling to do something for the country- not only girls but boys as well- and they’re very interested in studying something that will help improve their country. It’s something like a common feeling everybody has.
Alean and Samira plan to return to Afghanistan to work on rebuilding the country after they graduate from college. To read more about them, check out:
http://www.montclair.edu/pages/insight/INSIGHT12-08-03/Afghan.html
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=51238
- “From Afghanistan to New Jersey: A Conversation with Two Young Afghan Women Studying in the U.S.” was produced by Youth Radio's International
Desk, in association with National
Geographic.
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