At first I looked at this as extra credit for the class. As
this woman started to speak it was not about doing this for my English class,
it was more than that. This woman was touching my heart and she did not even
know it yet. She explained that she wanted to help educate underprivileged
girls in Afghanistan. Razia wanted this
project to grow and grow so these girls can be given a chance in life. She
explained that women and young girls in Afghanistan were not usually educated.
Razia explained one situation with a young girl being asked what she wanted to
be and her response was “ an engineer” , someone asked her what exactly is that
and she replied with “ I don’t know , but when I become an engineer I will come
back and tell you”. The fact that these girls did have dreams of being
something else other than a housewife is amazing. Razia mission was to build a school for girls
and later on build another school for boys.
She then showed a video that explained all that she has done
for some families to make them proud of their daughters to what they had to
wear and how the school was. The school has been teaching these young girls for
six years now. Razia wanted to explain equality to these girls to help them be
able to have a voice about what is going on in their life. An example of this
was one young woman fought with her dad for six months which created an unhappy
home because her father wanted to trade her for a younger wife instead of
paying. He finally then agreed. I could never let my father do that to me. They
struggle every day and I do not think I could ever go through what these girls
do every day. I complain about walking in bad weather, but these girls walk for
miles just to get their education and that is very inspiring. To build this
school was a very long process getting people to help give money for such an
important cause. She was already a part of the Rotary Club which was willing to
always help and then they fundraised and made $80,000. The other donator was
the author of “The Kite Runner”, who
dedicated his book to the children of Afghanistan. There are several different villages and four
hundred females attend school that goes from first grade to ninth grade. In the
future she wants to build institutions that they can go to after they finish
ninth grade to study nursing or becoming a teacher. I believe this is an
amazing idea and should be followed through. Razia Jan has influenced me so
much in just twenty minutes and has me considering to start teaching overseas
as my aunt has done for twenty-five years. She is more than a hero and I am so
glad I got to meet and take a picture with this wonderful woman.
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