My Hazara family is in grave danger in Afghanistan (#AfghanistanCrisis). Read my story for more context.
I have exhausted all of my options and now must apply for expedited humanitarian parole. The filing fee alone is 575 per person not even per family. I am helping 19 people total right now, my brother, my young girl cousins who could become child brides to Taliban, my half sister who has a one year old daughter and her husband was a police officer. Total three families and two youth. These are all Hazara minorities, and in hiding. I am also going to have lawyer fees on top of that and if I need to pay for evacuation efforts, plane, bus, hotel, and balck market prices for paperwork if I help evacuate them to a neighboring country by way of land... I first focused on the filing fees and it came to over 10k. Any money remaining will go to resettling refugees or filing fees for more people who are at great risk and don't have a voice, read my story for more context.
my story:
I have not slept in weeks, I have a 6 year old son and I am a full time software engineer for Cisco and a single mom. I have left my son with friends, and my co-parent mostly and have taken emergency leave, while trying to knock every door I can to help my dying Hazara minority family in Afghanistan, which is mostly young women. The photo collage shows each individual.
I was given a chance once and I never took it for granted, I was 17 when I first came to the US by myself on a scholarship. I am now an accomplished engineer and a homeowner in Austin Texas. I once lived under the Taliban. I was in 3rd grade. I had to stop going to school and soon became a refugee in Pakistan and started making rugs to feed my family. When the US came to Afghanistan and schools opened back up, an organization helped me transition from working as a child labor to going back to school, I skipped all of middle school and caught up fast, I soon started to tutor every subject I learned to other girls. I taught myself English in 2003 from the alphabet, I now speak great English and can share my story. I graduated from college in the US majoring in engineering, my curriculum was focused on mechanical engineering. I was a straight A student and graduated magna cum laude. Many girls from my childhood never got a chance and became sex slaves to Taliban, some were shot to death for not obeying. They never got a chance to go back to school. I was the lucky one.
I want that kind of oppression to end with me for my family in Afghanistan . We are a family of strong and resilient women and supportive men, my grandfather was proud of me when I got a scholarship to come to the US.
Taliban overthrew Kabul overnight, before I knew it my family went into hiding and homes started to be searched. My brother, my cousin and I grew up together as orphans. We were best friends, we almost never had a safe environment but shared a lot of laughter even when they tried to shoot at us, we kept playing in the dirt and had to leave our home and go to Pakistan.
My family is educated and driven, but they have always been pushed around for their ethnicity and progressive thoughts. My grandfather has been in hiding most of his life, he never participated in war and always prayed for peace. He continues to stay in his country hoping for peace, but I know that is not coming for Afghanistan anytime soon. The entire country that was built is gone . I am in tears as I write this. I have filled out a million forms and emails over the past weeks, but my brother and my first cousins, especially the girls I tried really hard to help because they are in grave danger, are mostly directly related to me.
They are still in hiding. We haven't been able to evacuate them. Time is running low I don’t want to lose my family
