ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Webster University sophomore Fahima Band Ali is devastated by what is happening in her native country of Afghanistan so she is doing something about it.
“We should not be trusting the Taliban with women’s rights and girls educations. As a human we all have the moral responsibility to use our voices to tell our leaders to act on this issue. There is a humanitarian crisis and human rights crisis.”
The 20-year-old Political Science major has started a Go Fund Me page to support the non-profit International Institute of Metropolitan St. Louis, which is helping up to 1,000 Afghan refugees move to St. Louis.
In 2017, Fahima left Afghanistan with her three sisters and joined her parents and brother in St. Louis. Before she left, she says she could see that progress was being made. For example, women did not have to cover themselves anymore as they did under the Taliban regime.
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“In Afghanistan, everybody was ready to die at any moment because you never knew when a bombing attack could happen. As a girl going to school, we were the most targeted group. All of these students were taking a big risk going to school. Anybody walking around the neighborhood was taking a big risk.”
But now that the Taliban is back in power her childhood friends, with whom she remains in contact, tell her of the brutality and chaos in her native country.
“I always thought that after leaving my country at the age of 15, I would always go back and visit where I grew up, but now I can’t even dream about having a country and that is quite devastating to think about.”
Fahima says she agrees 100% with the United States withdrawing from Afghanistan, but says it was a rush decision and poor timing. "If we could have waited until winter, we would have not seen all the destruction,” says Fahima.
“The Taliban goes away in the winter and is not as prepared as they are in the summer. It was a mistake for the United States to withdraw troops over the summer and it’s giving the Taliban the power to fight as hard as they are."
Tonight, September 7, Fahima is hosting an event at her school at 7pm to educate people about the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and to tell them how they can help. She will be speaking at the event along with Arrey Obenson, CEO and president of International Institute of Metropolitan St. Louis and Carlos Saurez, President of the United Nations Association of St. Louis.
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The event is free but Fahima encourages attendees to bring items such as clothes and cleaning supplies for Afghan refugees and to donate money. Visitors must wear masks and socially distance during the event.
“We should not be trusting the Taliban with women’s rights and girls educations. As a human we all have the moral responsibility to use our voices to tell our leaders to act on this issue. There is a humanitarian crisis and human rights crisis.”
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