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UMW welcomes Afghan students
UMW recruits two students from Afghanistan
BY JEFF BRANSCOME
Date published: 12/2/2007
BY JEFF BRANSCOME
In her native Afghanistan, University of Mary Washington freshman Nilab Sadat was whipped by the Taliban for wearing brown toenail polish.
"They were abusing the name of Islam," said Sadat, 22. "They were fighting for their dirty politics."
Flash-forward to October, when Sadat was going to class on what she thought was just another day at the Fredericksburg campus.
Soon after leaving her dorm, she said, she saw a guy in a miniskirt and a young woman wearing a diaper.
"I said, 'Something must be wrong today.'"
She later learned they were dressed up for Halloween, and she even took part in some of the festivities.
That kind of culture shock will likely continue for Sadat and her roommate, Zahra Noor, 22, who are the first-ever students from Afghanistan to attend UMW. Both moved here from Kabul.
The Initiative to Educate Afghan Women, a nonprofit founded in 2002, enabled the two to attend school in the United States for free. This year, the initiative is helping educate 42 Afghan women at 18 colleges in America.
Local philanthropist Doris Buffett is paying $20,000 a year for Noor and Sadat's education; UMW is covering the rest.
"We are our country's ambassadors here," Sadat said.
But they're also hoping students and professors will teach them a thing or two about the United States.
"I'm thinking that I should know a lot about this country's culture and history," Sadat said. "It makes life a lot easier."
CAMPUS SUPPORT
During a recent writing workshop class, Noor sat in the front row with her long, black hair tied into a ponytail.
One by one, students in professor Constance Fletcher Smith's class shared topics for their term papers, which ranged from marijuana's effects on unborn babies to the drought in Australia.
Noor said she'd like to write about Katrina's impact on New Orleans.
A classmate pointed out that the hurricane left mold and dirty water in its wake, prompting Smith to suggest a narrower topic for Noor's paper: the hazards of biological waste in New Orleans.
It's not light material, but Smith said she thinks Noor can handle it. After all, she had to practically beg Noor to skip class for a dentist appointment.
Paula Nirschel, wife of Roger Williams University President Roy Nirschel, started the nonprofit Initiative to Educate Afghan Women in 2002. The university in Rhode Island was the first U.S. school to offer a full scholarship to an Afghan woman.
The program now boasts 10 graduates and 42 current students, who return to Afghanistan during summer break.
Representatives with the initiative periodically visit colleges to check on the progress of the Afghan students. This year, new Afghan scholars spent at least a month during the summer in the United States honing their writing skills, as well as participating in activities such as trips to the beach and volleyball.
The program has received national attention, including from first lady Laura Bush, who was Roger Williams University's commencement speaker last spring. |
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Read more stories about Fredericksburg
Date published: 12/2/2007
Most recent reader comments:
Thousands of years
(posted by
Ranko
, Dec. 3, 2007 11:13 pm)
Hard to fight their history and I still believe that if the men were more enlightned they might not beat a woman because he didn't like her nail polish color.
Hey Ranko
(posted by
fugyou
, Dec. 2, 2007 8:52 am)
You are quite the prize to post something so completely idiotic. Edcuating the women means they will be able to come together and mobilize to make changes necessary to end the patriarchal abusive society they have there. How are you going to change the minds of millions of men who (as usual) think THEY are doing the right thing and protecting their masculinity by beating on their women? Men like that don't listen to reason. But if they did, I wouldn't recommend you as their mentor. :)
Waste of Time
(posted by
Ranko
, Dec. 2, 2007 3:05 am)
If you want to make a change then why aren't you educating young Afghan men. When the women return to their homeland they'll be beaten again if the men don't like something about them. Change needs to start at the source.
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