Afghan Women Rising
Dear Women For Afghan Women, I would like to begin this letter of reflection by thanking you for providing me with the opportunity to return to Afghanistan for the summer to complete an administrative internship with your organization. Beyond the learning aspect, it has been an incredible experience to return to the place I once called home, to your Halfway House in Kabul. …
[Read more...] about An Open Letter From A Former WAW Client
Last week, I had the honor and pleasure of attending a small luncheon where the special guests were Malala Yousufzai and her father Ziauddin Yousufzai. I have admired them both ever since the attack Malala suffered at the hands of the Taliban, and it is my great fortune that I met them not at a huge event but at an intimate luncheon where I could speak with them at leisure. This encounter with Malala and Ziauddin confirmed something that I had always suspected -- that the struggles of Afghans and Pakistanis are very closely connected, if not one and the same. …
[Read more...] about An Inspiring Lunch with Malala Yousufzai
News of the horrific and inhumane murder of Farkhunda left many westerners wondering whether Afghanistan, a country with a history of gruesome violence against women, has really changed. The brutal beating and burning of an innocent woman for allegedly having burned a page of the Quran is reminiscent of a society infamous, under Taliban rule, for commodifying, controlling, brutalizing and murdering women for the sake of family honor. But a recent trip to Afghanistan with Women for Afghan Women (WAW), a 14 year old non-profit organization dedicated to securing and protecting the rights of disenfranchised Afghan women and girls, painted a different, more positive image of what is happening in Afghanistan right now; one from which even US voters could learn something (given that the Afghan parliament is 27% female, whereas less than 20% of congress is female). …
