Scholarship Allows Afghan Women Education

BRISTOL, R.I. -- When the Taliban forbade education for girls past the age of 8, Forozan Farhat's father hired a personal teacher for her. \nAnd when Taliban officials asked if the man visiting their home in Kandahar every day was a teacher, Farhat's father said, "Teacher? No. He is Forozan's grandfather, come to check up on her health." \nSousan Rahimi's father taught her many of the skills she would have learned in high school, had she been allowed to attend. Hiding out in her home in Kabul, avoiding the watchful eye of the Taliban, she taught herself the rest. \nMahbuba Babrakzai, Masooda Mehdizada and Nadima Sahar went to school while living in exile with their families in Pakistan. \nIn a two-day journey that ended at Roger Williams University last month, these five Afghan women left behind a society that, until recently, punished women who yearned to master more than sixth-grade skills. \nThey came to America to learn and plan to take the skills they acquire here back to their homeland. The aspirations they articulate in fluent English are high. \n"This is the biggest stage of my life to do something and become something," said 18-year-old Sahar, an aspiring doctor who plans to study medical sciences at the University of Hartford. "I hope I do my best to reach the goals of my future and my family. We are the new generation of Afghanistan. If we get educated in a good way, it means Afghanistan is improving." \nSahar and her counterparts are the inaugural recipients of the national Scholarship Program for Afghan Women, established in January by Paula Nirschel, wife of RWU president Roy J. Nirschel. \nPaula Nirschel said she decided to offer the scholarship after she developed a friendship with Fatima Gailani, an Afghan expatriate living in Providence, R.I., when they met in November. \nThe full scholarships, worth about $125,000 over four years at Roger Williams University, will be awarded each year to one or more students who plan to return to their home country. \nAs part of the program, Roy and Paula Nirschel sent about 6,100 letters, 1,650 to editors of the country's major newspapers and 4,500 to officials at the nation's colleges and universities, encouraging others to take part. \nThe University of Southern Oregon, in Ashland; the University of Hartford, in Connecticut; the University of Montana; and Notre Dame College in Euclid, Ohio, agreed to join RWU in offering the scholarship. \nEighteen-year-old Babrakzai, who plans to study computer science and become a professor, and 20-year-old Mehdizada, the daughter of a late senator who plans to study political science, law and management in hopes of becoming prime minister one day, will remain in Bristol to attend Roger Williams University. \nTwenty-four-year-old Rahimi, who plans to study English literature and become a professor, is attending the University of Montana. Rahimi has already completed one year of college at the University of Kabul, where she hopes to teach someday. \nFarhat, 22, who plans to study political science and become an Afghan judge, will attend Notre Dame College in Ohio. \nAnother Afghan student, yet to be named, will enroll at the University of Southern Oregon soon. \nThe students were put through a "rigorous selection process," including a comprehensive language exam, and were ultimately chosen by a committee that included the chief State Department officer in Afghanistan and president of Kabul University, Paula Nirschel said. She declined to estimate how many women applied for the scholarships. \n"There are thousands of women in Afghanistan that if we had thousands of scholarships in the United States, Europe and Canada, thousands would be delighted to take advantage of those opportunities," Roy Nirschel said. \nBut this year, only six can, although the Nirschels said they expect several additional colleges and universities to offer the scholarship program in upcoming years. \nIn the meantime, though, much of the burden rests with these six young women, they said, and they know the pressure is on. \n"We have to get an education to do something for Afghanistan and help our families and become something for ourselves," aspiring judge Farhat said. \nThe women are particularly excited about meeting new and different people, they said. After all, they have a message to share with their American classmates. \n"The people of Afghanistan are very, very good people," Farhat said. "In every country, there are some good people, and there are some bad people. Those people who destroyed Afghanistan are not Afghans. They just wanted to use the name of Afghanistan. If they were Afghans, they would not destroy their own country and their own people." \nAnd there's one other important thing that both Americans and the Taliban need to know, all the women agreed. As aspiring English professor Rahimi put it, "It's time to prove that Afghan women can do anything"